Page:Kim - Rudyard Kipling (1912).djvu/252

226 in extreme instances—to open negotiations with a stranger. Can you quite see? Verree good. But suppose now, I, or any one of the Department, come to you dressed quite different. You would not know me at all unless I choose, I bet you. Some day I will prove it. I come as Ladakhi trader—oh anything—and I say to you: "You want to buy precious stones?" You say: "Do I look like a man who buys precious stones?" Then I say: "Even verree poor man can buy a turquoise or tarkeean."

'That is kichree—vegetable curry,' said Kim.

'Of course it is. You say: "Let me see the tarkeean. Then I say: "It was cooked by a woman, and perhaps it is bad for your caste." Then you say: "There is no caste when men go to—look for tarkeean" You stop a little between those words, "to—look." That is the whole secret. The little stop before the words.'

Kim repeated the test-sentence.

'That is all right. Then I will show you my turquoise if there is time, and then you know who I am, and then we exchange views and documents and those things. And so it is with any other man with us. We talk sometimes about turquoises and sometimes about tarkeean, but always with that little stop in the words. It is very easy. First, "Son of the Charm," if you are in a tight place. Perhaps that may help you—perhaps not. Then what I have told you about the tarkeean, if you want to transact offeecial business with a strange man. Of course, at present you have no offeecial business. You are—ah, ha!—supernumerary on probation. Quite unique specimen. If you were Asiatic of birth you might be employed right off; but this half-year of leave is to make you de-Englishized, you see? The lama, he expects you, because I have demi-offeecially informed him you have passed all your