We brought the news bear witness , we brought the news , and now we go . ' Kim half-crooked his hand at his side . The son tossed a silver coin through the sunlight , grumbling something about beggars and jugglers . It was a four-anna piece , and would feed them well for days . The lama , seeing the flash of the metal , droned a blessing . ` Go thy way , Friend of all the World , ' piped the old soldier , wheeling his scrawny mount . ` For once in all my days I have met a true prophet -- who was not in the Army . ' Father and son swung round together : the old man sitting as erect as the younger . A Punjabi constable in yellow linen trousers slouched across the road . He had seen the money pass . ` Halt ! ' he cried in impressive English . ` Know ye not that there is a takkus of two annas a head , which is four annas , on those who enter the Road from this side-road ? It is the order of the Sirkar , and the money is spent for the planting of trees and the beautification of the ways . ' ` And the bellies of the police , ' said Kim , slipping out of arm 's reach . ` Consider for a while , man with a mud head . Think you we came from the nearest pond like the frog , thy father-in-law ? Hast thou ever heard the name of thy brother ? ' ` And who was he ? Leave the boy alone , ' cried a senior constable , immensely delighted , as he squatted down to smoke his pipe in the veranda .
` He took a label from a bottle of belaitee-pani -LSB- soda-water -RSB- , and , affixing it to a bridge , collected taxes for a month from those who passed , saying that it was the XXXXX 's order .
Father Punjabi Sirkar World annas beautification days father-in-law lama takkus