'All one. Benares then. Quick: she comes!' 'Take thou the purse.' The lama, not so well used to trains as he had pre- tended, started as the 3.25 A.M. south bound roared in. The sleepers sprung to life, and the station filled with clamour and shoutings, cries of water and sweet- meat venders, shouts of native policemen, and shrill yells of women gathering up their baskets, their fam- ilies, and their husbands. 'It is the train -- only the te-rain. It will not come here. Wait!' Amazed at the lama's immense simplicity (he had handed him a small bag full of rupees), Kim asked and paid for a ticket to Umballa. A sleepy clerk grunted and flung out a ticket to the next station, just six miles distant. 'Nay,' said Kim, scanning it with a grin. 'This may serve for farmers, but I live in the city of Lahore. It was cleverly done, babu. Now give the ticket to Umballa.' The babu scowled and dealt the proper ticket. 'Now another to Amritzar,' said Kim, who had no notion of spending Mahbub Ali's money on anything so crude as a paid ride to Umballa. 'The price is so much. The small money in return is just so much. I know the ways of the te-rain.... Never did yogi need chela as thou dost,' he went on merrily to the bewildered lama. 'They would have flung thee out at Mian Mir but for me. This way! Come!' He -42- |