I

“Old priest⁠—young tiger,” said the woman angrily. “I am tired of new priests! They settle on our wares like flies. Is the father of my son a well of charity to give to all who ask?”

“No,” said Kim. “Thy man is rather yagi than yogi. But this priest is new. The Sahib in the Wonder House has talked to him like a brother. O my mother, fill me this bowl. He waits.”

“That bowl indeed! That cow-bellied basket! Thou hast as much grace as the holy bull of Shiv. He has taken the best of a basket of onions already, this morn; and forsooth, I must fill thy bowl. He comes here again.”

The huge, mouse-coloured Brahmini bull of the ward was shouldering his way through the many-coloured crowd, a stolen plantain hanging out of his mouth. He headed straight for the shop, well knowing his privileges as a sacred beast, lowered his head, and puffed heavily along the line of baskets ere making his choice. Up flew Kim’s hard little heel and caught him on his moist blue nose. He snorted indignantly, and walked away across the tram-rails, his hump quivering with rage.

“See! I have saved more than the bowl will cost thrice over. Now, mother, a little rice and some dried fish atop⁠—yes, and some vegetable curry.”

A growl came out of the back of the shop, where a man lay.

“He drove away the bull,” said the woman in an undertone. “It is good to give to the poor.” She took the bowl and returned it full of hot rice.

“But my yogi is not a cow,” said Kim gravely, making a hole with his fingers in the top of the mound. “A little curry is good, and a fried cake, and a morsel of conserve would please him, I think.”

“It is a hole as big as thy head,” said the woman fretfully. But she filled it, none the less, with good, steaming vegetable curry, clapped a fried cake atop, and a morsel of clarified butter on the cake, dabbed a lump of sour tamarind conserve at the side; and Kim looked at the load lovingly.