For proof, she harangued the entire household unsparingly till food and drink were brought; and in the evening — the smoke-scented evening, copper-dun and turquoise across the fields — it pleased her to order her palanquin to be set down in the untidy forecourt by smoky torchlight; and there, behind not too closely drawn curtains, she gossiped.

’Had the Holy One come alone, I should have received him otherwise; but with this rogue, who can be too careful?’

‘Maharanee,’ said Kim, choosing as always the amplest title, ’is it
my fault that none other than a Sahib — a polis-Sahib — called the
Maharanee whose face he -’
’Chutt!  That was on the pilgrimage. 
When we travel — thou knowest the proverb.’

’Called the Maharanee a Breaker of Hearts and a Dispenser of Delights?’

’To remember that!  It was true.  So he did.  That was in the time of the bloom of my beauty.’  She chuckled like a contented parrot above the sugar lump.  ’Now tell me of thy goings and comings — as much as may be without shame.  How many maids, and whose wives, hang upon thine eyelashes?  Ye hail from Benares?  I would have gone there again this year, but my daughter — we have only two sons.  Phaii!  Such is the effect of these low plains.  Now in Kulu men are elephants.  But I would ask thy Holy One — stand aside, rogue — a charm against most lamentable windy colics that in mango-time overtake my daughter’s eldest.  Two years back he gave me a powerful spell.’

‘Oh, Holy One!’ said Kim, bubbling with mirth at the lama’s rueful face.

‘It is true.  I gave her one against wind.’

’Teeth — teeth — teeth, ’ snapped the old woman.

“‘Cure them if they are sick,"’ Kim quoted relishingly, “’but by no means work charms.  Remember what befell the Mahratta."’

’That was two Rains ago; she wearied me with her continual importunity.’  The lama groaned as the Unjust Judge had groaned before him.  ’Thus it comes — take note, my chela — that even those who would follow the Way are thrust aside by idle women.  Three days through, when the child was sick, she talked to me.’

’Arre! and to whom else should I talk?  The boy’s mother knew nothing, and the father — in the nights of the cold weather it was — “Pray to the Gods,” said he, forsooth, and turning over, snored!’

‘I gave her the charm.  What is an old man to do?’

“‘To abstain from action is well — except to acquire merit."’

‘Ah chela, if thou desertest me, I am all alone.’

‘He found his milk-teeth easily at any rate,’ said the old lady.  ‘But all priests are alike.’

Kim coughed severely.  Being young, he did not approve of her flippancy.  ’To importune the wise out of season is to invite calamity.’