There would be new boys to condescend to , and there would be tales of holiday adventures to hear . Young Martin , son of the tea-planter at Manipur , had boasted that he would go to war , with a rifle , against the head-hunters . That might be , but it was certain young Martin had not been blown half across the forecourt of a Patiala palace by an explosion of fireworks ; nor had he ... Kim fell to telling himself the story of his own adventures through the last three months . He could paralyse St Xavier 's -- even the biggest boys who shaved -- with the recital , were that permitted . But it was , of course , out of the question . There would be a price upon his head in good time , as Lurgan Sahib had assured him ; and if he talked foolishly now , not only would that price never be set , but Colonel Creighton would cast him off -- and he would be left to the wrath of Lurgan Sahib and Mahbub Ali -- for the short space of life that would remain to him . ` So I should lose Delhi for the sake of a fish , ' was his proverbial philosophy . It behoved him to forget his holidays -LRB- there would always remain the fun of inventing imaginary adventures -RRB- and , as Lurgan Sahib had said , to work . Of all the boys hurrying back to St Xavier 's , from Sukkur in the sands to Galle beneath the palms , none was so filled with virtue as Kimball O'Hara , jiggeting down to Umballa behind Hurree Chunder Mookerjee , whose name on the books of one section of the Ethnological Survey was R. 17 . And if additional spur were needed , the Babu supplied it . After a huge meal at Kalka , he spoke uninterruptedly . Was Kim going to school ? Then he , an M A of Calcutta University , would explain the advantages of education . There were marks to be gained by due attention to Latin and Wordsworth 's Excursion -LRB- all this was Greek to Kim -RRB- . French , too was vital , and the best was to be picked up in Chandernagore a few miles from Calcutta . Also a man might go far , as he himself had done , by strict attention to plays called Lear and Julius Caesar , both much in demand by examiners . Lear was not so full of historical allusions as Julius Caesar ; the book cost four annas , but could be bought second-hand in Bow Bazar for two . Still more important than Wordsworth , or the eminent authors , Burke and Hare , was the art and science of mensuration . A boy who had passed his examination in these branches -- for which , by the way , there were no cram-books -- could , by merely marching over a country with a compass and a level and a straight eye , carry away a picture of that country which might be sold for large sums in coined silver . But as it was occasionally inexpedient to carry about measuring-chains a boy would do well to know the precise length of his own foot-pace , so that when he was deprived of what Hurree Chunder called adventitious aids ' he might still tread his distances .
To keep count of thousands of paces , Hurree XXXXX 's experience had shown him nothing more valuable than a rosary of eighty-one or a hundred and eight beads , for ` it was divisible and sub-divisible into many multiples and sub-multiples ' .
Calcutta Chunder Galle Lear Martin Mookerjee Patiala foot-pace forecourt months