‘But why not sit and rest?’ said one of the escort. ‘Only the devils and the English walk to and fro without reason.’

Many wear the Robe, but few keep the Way.’

‘That is not well. These men follow desire and come to emptiness. Thou must not be of their sort.’

‘News is not meant to be thrown about like dung-cakes, but used sparingly—like bhang.’

‘What is to do now?’ ‘Wait. Let us wait.’

All India is full of holy men stammering gospels in strange tongues; shaken and consumed in the fires of their own zeal; dreamers, babblers, and visionaries: as it has been from the beginning and will continue to the end.

‘Learn first—teach later,’ said Lurgan Sahib. ‘Is he thy master?’ ‘Truly. But how is it done?’ ‘By doing it many times over till it is done perfectly—for it is worth doing.’

Lurgan Sahib had a hawk’s eye to detect the least flaw in the make-up; and lying on a worn teak-wood couch, would explain by the half-hour together how such and such a caste talked, or walked, or coughed, or spat, or sneezed, and, since ‘hows’ matter little in this world, the ‘why’ of everything.

‘Never speak to a white man till he is fed,’ said Kim, quoting a well-known proverb.