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Kim by Rudyard Kipling
page 5 of 426 (01%)
easier to slip into Hindu or Mohammedan garb when engaged on
certain businesses. One of the young men of fashion - he who was
found dead at the bottom of a well on the night of the earthquake -
had once given him a complete suit of Hindu kit, the costume
of a lowcaste street boy, and Kim stored it in a secret place
under some baulks in Nila Ram's timber-yard, beyond the Punjab
High Court, where the fragrant deodar logs lie seasoning after
they have driven down the Ravi. When there was business or frolic
afoot, Kim would use his properties, returning at dawn to the
veranda, all tired out from shouting at the heels of a marriage
procession, or yelling at a Hindu festival. Sometimes there was
food in the house, more often there was not, and then Kim went
out again to eat with his native friends.

As he drummed his heels against Zam-Zammah he turned now and
again from his king-of-the-castle game with little Chota Lal and
Abdullah the sweetmeat-seller's son, to make a rude remark to the
native policeman on guard over rows of shoes at the Museum door.
The big Punjabi grinned tolerantly: he knew Kim of old. So did
the water-carrier, sluicing water on the dry road from his goat-
skin bag. So did Jawahir Singh, the Museum carpenter, bent over
new packing-cases. So did everybody in sight except the peasants
from the country, hurrying up to the Wonder House to view the
things that men made in their own province and elsewhere. The
Museum was given up to Indian arts and manufactures, and anybody
who sought wisdom could ask the Curator to explain.

'Off! Off! Let me up!' cried Abdullah, climbing up Zam-Zammah's
wheel.

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