He was , of course , indicted for smoking and for the use of abuse more full-flavoured than even St Xavier 's had ever heard . He learned to wash himself with the Levitical scrupulosity of the native-born , who in his heart considers the Englishman rather dirty . He played the usual tricks on the patient coolies pulling the punkahs in the sleeping-rooms where the boys threshed through the hot nights telling tales till the dawn ; and quietly he measured himself against his self-reliant mates . They were sons of subordinate officials in the Railway , Telegraph , and Canal Services ; of warrant-officers , sometimes retired and sometimes acting as commanders-in-chief to a feudatory Rajah 's army ; of captains of the Indian Marine Government pensioners , planters , Presidency shopkeepers , and missionaries . A few were cadets of the old Eurasian houses that have taken strong root in Dhurrumtollah -- Pereiras , De Souzas , and D'Silvas . Their parents could well have educated them in England , but they loved the school that had served their own youth , and generation followed sallow-hued generation at St Xavier 's . Their homes ranged from Howrah of the railway people to abandoned cantonments like Monghyr and Chunar ; lost tea-gardens Shillong-way ; villages where their fathers were large landholders in Oudh or the Deccan ; Mission-stations a week from the nearest railway line ; seaports a thousand miles south , facing the brazen Indian surf ; and cinchona-plantations south of all . The mere story of their adventures , which to them were no adventures , on their road to and from school would have crisped a Western boy 's hair . They were used to jogging off alone through a hundred miles of jungle , where there was always the delightful chance of being delayed by tigers ; but they would no more have bathed in the English Channel in an English August than their brothers across the world would have lain still while a leopard snuffed at their palanquin . There were boys of fifteen who had spent a day and a half on an islet in the middle of a flooded river , taking charge , as by right , of a camp of frantic pilgrims returning from a shrine . There were seniors who had requisitioned a chance-met Rajah 's elephant , in the name of St Francis Xavier , when the Rains once blotted out the cart-track that led to their father 's estate , and had all but lost the huge beast in a quicksand . There was a boy who , he said , and none doubted , had helped his father to beat off with rifles from the veranda a rush of Akas in the days when those head-hunters were bold against lonely plantations . And every tale was told in the even , passionless voice of the native-born , mixed with quaint reflections , borrowed unconsciously from native foster-mothers , and turns of speech that showed they had been that instant translated from the vernacular . Kim watched , listened , and approved . This was not insipid , single-word talk of drummer-boys . It dealt with a life he knew and in part understood . The atmosphere suited him , and he throve by inches . They gave him a white drill suit as the weather warmed , and he rejoiced in the new-found bodily comforts as he rejoiced to use his sharpened mind over the tasks they set him . His quickness would have delighted an English master ; but at St Xavier 's they know the first rush of minds developed by sun and surroundings , as they know the half-collapse that sets in at twenty-two or twenty-three . None the less he remembered to hold himself lowly .
When tales were told of hot XXXXX , Kim did not sweep the board with his reminiscences ; for St Xavier 's looks down on boys who ` go native all-together . '
Dhurrumtollah England Englishman Indian Services Telegraph first nights palanquin week