` Sahibs get little pleasure of travel , ' he reflected . ` Hai mai ! I go from one place to another as it might be a kickball . It is my Kismet . No man can escape his Kismet . But I am to pray to Bibi Miriam , and I am a Sahib . ' He looked at his boots ruefully . ` No ; I am Kim . This is the great world , and I am only Kim . Who is Kim ? ' He considered his own identity , a thing he had never done before , till his head swam . He was one insignificant person in all this roaring whirl of India , going southward to he knew not what fate . Presently the Colonel sent for him , and talked for a long time . So far as Kim could gather , he was to be diligent and enter the Survey of India as a chain-man . If he were very good , and passed the proper examinations , he would be earning thirty rupees a month at seventeen years old , and Colonel Creighton would see that he found suitable employment . Kim pretended at first to understand perhaps one word in three of this talk . Then the Colonel , seeing his mistake , turned to fluent and picturesque Urdu and Kim was contented . No man could be a fool who knew the language so intimately , who moved so gently and silently , and whose eyes were so different from the dull fat eyes of other Sahibs . ` Yes , and thou must learn how to make pictures of roads and mountains and rivers , to carry these pictures in thine eye till a suitable time comes to set them upon paper . Perhaps some day , when thou art a chain-man , I may say to thee when we are working together : `` Go across those hills and see what lies beyond . ''
Then one will say : `` There are bad people living in those hills who will slay the XXXXX if he be seen to look like a Sahib . ''
Hai India Kim Miriam Sahib Sahibs chain-man escape first old