` Off ! Off ! Let me up ! ' cried Abdullah , climbing up Zam-Zammah 's wheel . ` Thy father was a pastry-cook , Thy mother stole the ghi , ' sang Kim . ` All Mussalmans fell off Zam-Zammah long ago ! ' ` Let me up ! ' shrilled little Chota Lal in his gilt-embroidered cap . His father was worth perhaps half a million sterling , but India is the only democratic land in the world . ` The Hindus fell off Zam-Zammah too . The Mussalmans pushed them off . Thy father was a pastry-cook -- ' He stopped ; for there shuffled round the corner , from the roaring Motee Bazar , such a man as Kim , who thought he knew all castes , had never seen . He was nearly six feet high , dressed in fold upon fold of dingy stuff like horse-blanketing , and not one fold of it could Kim refer to any known trade or profession . At his belt hung a long open-work iron pencase and a wooden rosary such as holy men wear . On his head was a gigantic sort of tam-o ' - shanter . His face was yellow and wrinkled , like that of Fook Shing , the Chinese bootmaker in the bazar . His eyes turned up at the corners and looked like little slits of onyx . ` Who is that ? ' said Kim to his companions . ` Perhaps it is a man , ' said Abdullah , finger in mouth , staring .
` Without doubt , ' returned XXXXX ; ` but he is no man of India that I have ever seen . ' '
Abdullah Bazar Kim Mussalmans bootmaker castes ghi onyx shanter tam-o