today he paced with tenfold pride in the train of a semi-royal
procession, with a recognized place under the patronage of an old
lady of charming manners and infinite resource. The escort, their
heads tied up native-fashion, fell in on either side the cart,
shuffling enormous clouds of dust.

The lama and Kim walked a little to one side; Kim chewing his stick
of sugarcane, and making way for no one under the status of a
priest. They could hear the old lady's tongue clack as steadily as
a rice-husker. She bade the escort tell her what was going on on
the road; and so soon as they were clear of the parao she flung
back the curtains and peered out, her veil a third across her face.
Her men did not eye her directly when she addressed them, and thus
the proprieties were more or less observed.

A dark, sallowish District Superintendent of Police, faultlessly
uniformed, an Englishman, trotted by on a tired horse, and, seeing
from her retinue what manner of person she was, chaffed her.

'O mother,' he cried, 'do they do this in the zenanas? Suppose an
Englishman came by and saw that thou hast no nose?'

'What?' she shrilled back. 'Thine own mother has no nose? Why say
so, then, on the open road?'

It was a fair counter. The Englishman threw up his hand with the
gesture of a man hit at sword-play. She laughed and nodded.

'Is this a face to tempt virtue aside?' She withdrew all her veil
and stared at him.