“What fools are these Police Sahibs!” said Kim genially.
E23 glanced up under his eyelids. “It is well said,” he muttered in a changed voice. “I go to drink water. Keep my place.”
He blundered out almost into the Englishman’s arms, and was bad-worded in clumsy Urdu.
“Tum mut? You drunk? You mustn’t bang about as though Delhi station belonged to you, my friend.”
E23, not moving a muscle of his countenance, answered with a stream of the filthiest abuse, at which Kim naturally rejoiced. It reminded him of the drummer-boys and the barrack-sweepers at Umballa in the terrible time of his first schooling.
“My good fool,” the Englishman drawled. “Nickle-jao! Go back to your carriage.”
Step by step, withdrawing deferentially and dropping his voice, the yellow Saddhu clomb back to the carriage, cursing the D.S.P. to remotest posterity, by—here Kim almost jumped—by the curse of the Queen’s Stone, by the writing under the Queen’s Stone, and by an assortment of Gods with wholly, new names.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,”—the Englishman flushed angrily—“but it’s some piece of blasted impertinence. Come out of that!”
E23, affecting to misunderstand, gravely produced his ticket, which the Englishman wrenched angrily from his hand.
“Oh, zoolum! What oppression!” growled the Jat from his corner. “All for the sake of a jest too.” He had been grinning at the freedom of the Saddhu’s tongue. “Thy charms do not work well today, Holy One!”