thou ever heard the name of thy brother?'

'And who was he? Leave the boy alone,' cried a senior constable,
immensely delighted, as he squatted down to smoke his pipe in the
veranda.

'He took a label from a bottle of belaitee-pani [soda-water], and,
affixing it to a bridge, collected taxes for a month from those who
passed, saying that it was the Sirkar's order. Then came an
Englishman and broke his head. Ah, brother, I am a town-crow, not a
village-crow!'

The policeman drew back abashed, and Kim hooted at him all down the
road.

'Was there ever such a disciple as I?' he cried merrily to the
lama. 'All earth would have picked thy bones within ten mile of
Lahore city if I had not guarded thee.'

'I consider in my own mind whether thou art a spirit, sometimes, or
sometimes an evil imp,' said the lama, smiling slowly.

'I am thy chela.' Kim dropped into step at his side - that
indescribable gait of the long-distance tramp all the world over.

'Now let us walk,' muttered the lama, and to the click of his
rosary they walked in silence mile upon mile. The lama as usual,
was deep in meditation, but Kim's bright eyes were open wide. This
broad, smiling river of life, he considered, was a vast improvement
on the cramped and crowded Lahore streets. There were new people