Now good-bye . I have urgent private business here by the roadside . ' He slipped out noiselessly as a cat , on the Umballa road , hailed a passing cart and jingled away , while Kim , tongue-tied , twiddled the brass betel-box in his hands . The record of a boy 's education interests few save his parents , and , as you know , Kim was an orphan . It is written in the books of St Xavier 's in Partibus that a report of Kim 's progress was forwarded at the end of each term to Colonel Creighton and to Father Victor , from whose hands duly came the money for his schooling . It is further recorded in the same books that he showed a great aptitude for mathematical studies as well as map-making , and carried away a prize -LRB- The Life of Lord Lawrence , tree-calf , two vols. , nine rupees , eight annas -RRB- for proficiency therein ; and the same term played in St Xavier 's eleven against the Alighur Mohammedan College , his age being fourteen years and ten months . He was also re-vaccinated -LRB- from which we may assume that there had been another epidemic of smallpox at Lucknow -RRB- about the same time . Pencil notes on the edge of an old muster-roll record that he was punished several times for ` conversing with improper persons ' , and it seems that he was once sentenced to heavy pains for ` absenting himself for a day in the company of a street beggar ' . That was when he got over the gate and pleaded with the lama through a whole day down the banks of the Gumti to accompany him on the Road next holidays -- for one month -- for a little week ; and the lama set his face as a flint against it , averring that the time had not yet come . Kim 's business , said the old man as they ate cakes together , was to get all the wisdom of the Sahibs and then he would see . The Hand of Friendship must in some way have averted the Whip of Calamity , for six weeks later Kim seems to have passed an examination in elementary surveying ` with great credit ' , his age being fifteen years and eight months . From this date the record is silent . His name does not appear in the year 's batch of those who entered for the subordinate Survey of India , but against it stand the words ` removed on appointment . ' Several times in those three years , cast up at the Temple of the Tirthankars in Benares the lama , a little thinner and a shade yellower , if that were possible , but gentle and untainted as ever . Sometimes it was from the South that he came -- from south of Tuticorin , whence the wonderful fire-boats go to Ceylon where are priests who know Pali ; sometimes it was from the wet green West and the thousand cotton-factory chimneys that ring Bombay ; and once from the North , where he had doubled back eight hundred miles to talk for a day with the Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House . He would stride to his cell in the cool , cut marble -- the priests of the Temple were good to the old man , -- wash off the dust of travel , make prayer , and depart for Lucknow , well accustomed now to the way of the rail , in a third-class carriage . Returning , it was noticeable , as his friend the Seeker pointed out to the head-priest , that he ceased for a while to mourn the loss of his River , or to draw wondrous pictures of the Wheel of Life , but preferred to talk of the beauty and wisdom of a certain mysterious chela whom no man of the Temple had ever seen . Yes , he had followed the traces of the Blessed Feet throughout all India . -LRB- The Curator has still in his possession a most marvellous account of his wanderings and meditations . -RRB- There remained nothing more in life but to find the River of the Arrow .
Yet it was shown to him in dreams that it was a matter not to be undertaken with any hope of success unless that seeker had with him the one XXXXX appointed to bring the event to a happy issue , and versed in great wisdom -- such wisdom as white-haired Keepers of Images possess .
Curator India Lawrence Partibus West chela lama map-making tree-calf week