case. If the worst came to the worst, and the boy came to harm,
the paper would incriminate nobody. And he would go up to Umballa
leisurely and - at a certain risk of exciting fresh suspicion -
repeat his tale by word of mouth to the people concerned.

But R17's report was the kernel of the whole affair, and it would
be distinctly inconvenient if that failed to come to hand.
However, God was great, and Mahbub Ali felt he had done all he
could for the time being. Kim was the one soul in the world who
had never told him a lie. That would have been a fatal blot on
Kim's character if Mahbub had not known that to others, for his
own ends or Mahbub's business, Kim could lie like an Oriental.

Then Mahbub Ali rolled across the serai to the Gate of the
Harpies who paint their eyes and trap the stranger, and was at
some pains to call on the one girl who, he had reason to believe,
was a particular friend of a smooth-faced Kashmiri pundit who had
waylaid his simple Balti in the matter of the telegrams. It was
an utterly foolish thing to do; because they fell to drinking
perfumed brandy against the Law of the Prophet, and Mahbub grew
wonderfully drunk, and the gates of his mouth were loosened, and
he pursued the Flower of Delight with the feet of intoxication
till he fell flat among the cushions, where the Flower of
Delight, aided by a smooth-faced Kashmiri pundit, searched him
from head to foot most thoroughly.

About the same hour Kim heard soft feet in Mahbub's deserted
stall. The horse-trader, curiously enough, had left his door
unlocked, and his men were busy celebrating their return to India
with a whole sheep of Mahbub's bounty. A sleek young gentleman