other regiments came to visit the Mavericks. The Mavericks went
visiting on their own account. Their pickets hurried forth to bring
them back, met pickets of strange regiments on the same duty; and,
after a while, the bugles blew madly for more pickets with officers
to control the tumult. The Mavericks had a reputation for
liveliness to live up to. But they fell in on the platform next
morning in perfect shape and condition; and Kim, left behind with
the sick, women, and boys, found himself shouting farewells
excitedly as the trains drew away. Life as a Sahib was amusing so
far; but he touched it with a cautious hand. Then they marched him
back in charge of a drummer-boy to empty, lime-washed barracks,
whose floors were covered with rubbish and string and paper, and
whose ceilings gave back his lonely footfall. Native-fashion, he
curled himself up on a stripped cot and went to sleep. An angry man
stumped down the veranda, woke him up, and said he was a
schoolmaster. This was enough for Kim, and he retired into his
shell. He could just puzzle out the various English Police notices
in Lahore city, because they affected his comfort; and among the
many guests of the woman who looked after him had been a queer
German who painted scenery for the Parsee travelling theatre. He
told Kim that he had been 'on the barricades in 'Forty-eight,' and
therefore - at least that was how it struck Kim - he would teach
the boy to write in return for food. Kim had been kicked as far as
single letters, but did not think well of them.

'I do not know anything. Go away!' said Kim, scenting evil.
Hereupon the man caught him by the ear, dragged him to a room in a
far-off wing where a dozen drummer-boys were sitting on forms, and
told him to be still if he could do nothing else. This he managed
very successfully. The man explained something or other with white