'All right. I ain't goin'. It's too 'ot. I can watch you from 'ere.
It's no good your runnin' away. If you did, they'd spot you by your
clothes. That's regimental stuff you're wearin'. There ain't a
picket in Umballa wouldn't 'ead you back quicker than you started
out.'

This did not impress Kim as much as the knowledge that his raiment
would tire him out if he tried to run. He slouched to the tree at
the corner of a bare road leading towards the bazar, and eyed the
natives passing. Most of them were barrack-servants of the lowest
caste. Kim hailed a sweeper, who promptly retorted with a piece of
unnecessary insolence, in the natural belief that the European boy
could not follow it. The low, quick answer undeceived him. Kim put
his fettered soul into it, thankful for the late chance to abuse
somebody in the tongue he knew best. 'And now, go to the nearest
letter-writer in the bazar and tell him to come here. I would write
a letter.'

'But - but what manner of white man's son art thou to need a bazar
letter-writer? Is there not a schoolmaster in the barracks?'

'Ay; and Hell is full of the same sort. Do my order, you - you Od!
Thy mother was married under a basket! Servant of Lal Beg' (Kim
knew the God of the sweepers), 'run on my business or we will talk
again.'

The sweeper shuffled off in haste. 'There is a white boy by the
barracks waiting under a tree who is not a white boy,' he stammered
to the first bazar letter-writer he came across. 'He needs thee.'