Then came the holidays from August to October - the long holidays
imposed by the heat and the Rains. Kim was informed that he would
go north to some station in the hills behind Umballa, where Father
Victor would arrange for him.

'A barrack-school?' said Kim, who had asked many questions and
thought more.

'Yes, I suppose so,' said the master. 'It will not do you any harm
to keep you out of mischief. You can go up with young De Castro as
far as Delhi.'

Kim considered it in every possible light. He had been diligent,
even as the Colonel advised. A boy's holiday was his own property -
of so much the talk of his companions had advised him, - and a
barrack-school would be torment after St Xavier's. Moreover - this
was magic worth anything else - he could write. In three months he
had discovered how men can speak to each other without a third
party, at the cost of half an anna and a little knowledge. No word
had come from the lama, but there remained the Road. Kim yearned
for the caress of soft mud squishing up between the toes, as his
mouth watered for mutton stewed with butter and cabbages, for rice
speckled with strong scented cardamoms, for the saffron-tinted
rice, garlic and onions, and the forbidden greasy sweetmeats of the
bazars. They would feed him raw beef on a platter at the barrack-
school, and he must smoke by stealth. But again, he was a Sahib and
was at St Xavier's, and that pig Mahbub Ali ... No, he would not
test Mahbub's hospitality - and yet ... He thought
it out alone in the dormitory, and came to the conclusion he had