Kim nodded. “Good,” said he, “and who is Lurgan Sahib? Nay”—he caught Mahbub’s sword-keen glance—“indeed I have never heard his name. Is he by chance”—he lowered his voice—“one of us?”
“What talk is this of us , Sahib?” Mahbub Ali returned, in the tone he used towards Europeans. “I am a Pathan; thou art a Sahib and the son of a Sahib. Lurgan Sahib has a shop among the European shops. All Simla knows it. Ask there … and, Friend of all the World, he is one to be obeyed to the last wink of his eyelashes. Men say he does magic, but that should not touch thee. Go up the hill and ask. Here begins the Great Game.”