here.”
“He eats five times a day, and lances boils for my hinds to save himself from an apoplexy. He is so full of anxiety for thy health that he sticks to the cookhouse door and stays himself with scraps. He will keep. We shall never get rid of him.”
“Send him here, mother”—the twinkle returned to Kim’s eye for a flash—“and I will try.”
“I’ll send him, but to chase him off is an ill turn. At least he had the sense to fish the Holy One out of the brook; thus, as the Holy One did not say, acquiring merit.”
“He is a very wise hakim . Send him, mother.”
“Priest praising priest? A miracle! If he is any friend of thine (ye squabbled at your last meeting) I’ll hale him here with horse-ropes and—and give him a caste-dinner afterwards, my son … Get up and see the world! This lying abed is the mother of seventy devils … my son! my son!”