Chapter 7


Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised
With idiot moons and stars retracing stars?
Creep thou betweene - thy coming's all unnoised.
Heaven hath her high, as Earth her baser, wars.
Heir to these tumults, this affright, that fraye
(By Adam's, fathers', own, sin bound alway);
Peer up, draw out thy horoscope and say
Which planet mends thy threadbare fate or mars?

Sir John Christie.



In the afternoon the red-faced schoolmaster told Kim that he had
been 'struck off the strength', which conveyed no meaning to him
till he was ordered to go away and play. Then he ran to the bazar,
and found the young letter-writer to whom he owed a stamp.

'Now I pay,' said Kim royally, 'and now I need another letter to be
written.'

'Mahbub Ali is in Umballa,' said the writer jauntily. He was, by
virtue of his office, a bureau of general misinformation.