enough for such a pair? Drink, then, in the name of the Compassionate.”
He loosed a thin stream into Kim’s hands, who drank native fashion; but the lama must needs pull out a cup from his inexhaustible upper draperies and drink ceremonially.
“ Pardesi ,” Kim explained, as the old man delivered in an unknown tongue what was evidently a blessing.
They ate together in great content, clearing the beggar’s bowl. Then the lama took snuff from a portentous wooden snuff-gourd, fingered his rosary awhile, and so dropped into the easy sleep of age, as the shadow of Zam-Zammah grew long.
Kim loafed over to the nearest tobacco-seller, a rather lively young Mohammedan woman, and begged a rank cigar of the brand that they sell to students of the Punjab University who copy English customs. Then he smoked and thought, knees to chin, under the belly of the gun, and the outcome of his thoughts was a sudden and stealthy departure in the direction of Nila Ram’s timber-yard.