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Kim by Rudyard Kipling
page 207 of 426 (48%)
brickbats and ballast-refuse on a damp night, between overcrowded
horses and unwashed Baltis, would not appeal to many white boys;
but Kim was utterly happy. Change of scene, service, and
surroundings were the breath of his little nostrils, and thinking
of the neat white cots of St Xavier's all arow under the punkah
gave him joy as keen as the repetition of the multiplication-table
in English.

'I am very old,' he thought sleepily. 'Every month I become a year
more old. I was very young, and a fool to boot, when I took
Mahbub's message to Umballa. Even when I was with that white
Regiment I was very young and small and had no wisdom. But now I
learn every day, and in three years the Colonel will take me out of
the madrissah and let me go upon the Road with Mahbub hunting for
horses' pedigrees, or maybe I shall go by myself; or maybe I shall
find the lama and go with him. Yes; that is best. To walk again as
a chela with my lama when he comes back to Benares.'

The thoughts
came more slowly and disconnectedly. He was plunging into a
beautiful dreamland when his ears caught a whisper, thin and sharp,
above the monotonous babble round the fire. It came from behind the
iron-skinned horse-truck.

'He is not here, then?'

'Where should he be but roystering in the city. Who looks for a rat
in a frog-pond? Come away. He is not our man.'

'He must not go back beyond the Passes a second time. It is the
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