Page:Kim - Rudyard Kipling (1912).djvu/296

268 makes a man renew his youth and astonish his household; saffron from Kashmir, and the best salop 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 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.'

'He shall indeed. If our neighbour's brat can in a few years be made an F.A.' (First Arts—she used the English word, of which she had heard so much), 'how much more shall children clever as some that I know bear away prizes and awards at rich Calcutta.'

'Never,' said the voice, 'have I seen a child! Born in an auspicious hour, and but for that colic which, alas! turning into black cholera, may carry him off like a pigeon, destined to many years, he is enviable.'

Hai mai! said the old lady. 'To praise children is inauspicious, or I could listen to this talk. But the back of the house is unguarded, and even in this soft air men think themselves to be rncn and women we know. . . . The child's father is away too, and I must be chowkedar (watchman) in my old age. Up! Up! Take up the palanquin. Let the hakim and the young priest settle it between them whether charms or medicine most avail. Ho! worthless people, fetch tobacco for the guests, and—round the homestead go I!'