‘I think,’ said the Babu heavily, lighting a cigarette, ’I am of opeenion that it is most extraordinary and effeecient performance.  Except that you had told me I should have opined that- that- that you were pulling my legs.  How soon can he become approximately effeecient chain-man?  Because then I shall indent for him.’

‘That is what he must learn at Lucknow.’

‘Then order him to be jolly-dam’-quick.  Good-night, Lurgan.’  The Babu swung out with the gait of a bogged cow.

When they were telling over the day’s list of visitors, Lurgan Sahib asked Kim who he thought the man might be.

‘God knows!’ said Kim cheerily.  The tone might almost have deceived Mahbub Ali, but it failed entirely with the healer of sick pearls.

‘That is true.  God, He knows; but I wish to know what you think.’

Kim glanced sideways at his companion, whose eye had a way of compelling truth.

‘I — I think he will want me when I come from the school, but’ — confidentially, as Lurgan Sahib nodded approval — ’I do not understand how he can wear many dresses and talk many tongues.’

’Thou wilt understand many things later.  He is a writer of tales for a certain Colonel.  His honour is great only in Simla, and it is noticeable that he has no name, but only a number and a letter — that is a custom among us.’

’And is there a price upon his head too — as upon Mah — all the others?’

’Not yet; but if a boy rose up who is now sitting here and went — look, the door is open! — as far as a certain house with a red-painted veranda, behind that which was the old theatre in the Lower Bazar, and whispered through the shutters:  “Hurree Chunder Mookerjee bore the bad news of last month”, that boy might take away a belt full of rupees.’

‘How many?’ said Kim promptly.

‘Five hundred — a thousand — as many as he might ask for.’

’Good.  And for how long might such a boy live after the news was told?’ He smiled merrily at Lurgan’s Sahib’s very beard.

’Ah!  That is to be well thought of.  Perhaps if he were very clever, he might live out the day — but not the night.  By no means the night.’

‘Then what is the Babu’s pay if so much is put upon his head?’

’Eighty — perhaps a hundred — perhaps a hundred and fifty rupees; but the pay is the least part of the work.  From time to time, God causes men to be born — and thou art one of them — who have a lust to go abroad at the risk of their lives and discover news — today it may be of far-off things, tomorrow of some hidden mountain, and the next day of some near-by men who have done a foolishness against the State.  These souls are very few; and of these few, not more than ten are of the best.  Among these ten I count the Babu, and that is curious.  How great, therefore, and desirable must be a business that brazens the heart of a Bengali!’

’True.  But the days go slowly for me.  I am yet a boy, and it is only within two months I learned to write Angrezi.  Even now I cannot read it well.  And there are yet years and years and long years before I can be even a chain-man.’