“A rat found a piece of turmeric. Said he: ‘I will open a grocer’s shop,’ ” Kim retorted.
Battle was fairly joined now, and they heard the old lady stiffen to attention.
“The priest’s son knows the names of his nurse and three Gods. Says he: ‘Hear me, or I will curse you by the three million Great Ones.’ ” Decidedly this invisible had an arrow or two in his quiver. He went on: “I am but a teacher of the alphabet. I have learned all the wisdom of the Sahibs.”
“The Sahibs never grow old. They dance and they play like children when they are grandfathers. A strong-backed breed,” piped the voice inside the palanquin.
“I have, too, our drugs which loosen humours of the head in hot and angry men. Siná well compounded when the moon stands in the proper House; yellow earths I have— arplan from China that makes a man renew his youth and astonish his household; saffron from Kashmir, and the best salep of Kabul. Many people have died before—”
“That I surely believe,” said Kim.
“They knew the value of my drugs. I do not give my sick the mere ink in which a charm is written, but hot and rending drugs which descend and wrestle with the evil.”
“Very mightily they do so,” sighed the old lady.
The voice launched into an immense tale of misfortune and bankruptcy, studded with plentiful petitions to the Government. “But for my fate, which overrules all, I had been now in Government employ. I bear a degree from the great school at Calcutta—whither, maybe, the son of this House shall go.”