Pity that he does not take the Qpeen 's service . He is fearless . ' This news amazed the lama , who did not then know how religiously Kim kept to the contract made with Mahbub Ali , and perforce ratified by Colonel Creighton ... ` There is no holding the young pony from the game , ' said the horse-dealer when the Colonel pointed out that vagabonding over India in holiday time was absurd . ` If permission be refused to go and come as he chooses , he will make light of the refusal . Then who is to catch him ? Colonel Sahib , only once in a thousand years is a horse born so well fitted for the game as this our colt . And we need men . ' Chapter 10 Your tiercel 's too long at hack , Sire . He 's no eyass But a passage-hawk that footed ere we caught him , Dangerously free o ' the air . Faith ! were he mine -LRB- As mine 's the glove he binds to for his tirings -RRB- I 'd fly him with a make-hawk . He 's in yarak Plumed to the very point -- so manned , so weathered ... Give him the firmament God made him for , And what shall take the air of him ? Gow 's Watch Lurgan Sahib did not use as direct speech , but his advice tallied with Mahbub 's ; and the upshot was good for Kim . He knew better now than to leave Lucknow city in native garb , and if Mahbub were anywhere within reach of a letter , it was to Mahbub 's camp he headed , and made his change under the Pathan 's wary eye . Could the little Survey paint-box that he used for map-tinting in term-time have found a tongue to tell of holiday doings , he might have been expelled . Once Mahbub and he went together as far as the beautiful city of Bombay , with three truckloads of tram-horses , and Mahbub nearly melted when Kim proposed a sail in a dhow across the Indian Ocean to buy Gulf Arabs , which , he understood from a hanger-on of the dealer Abdul Rahman , fetched better prices than mere Kabulis . He dipped his hand into the dish with that great trader when Mahbub and a few co-religionists were invited to a big Haj dinner . They came back by way of Karachi by sea , when Kim took his first experience of sea-sickness sitting on the fore-hatch of a coasting-steamer , well persuaded he had been poisoned . The Babu 's famous drug-box proved useless , though Kim had restocked it at Bombay . Mahbub had business at Quetta , and there Kim , as Mahbub admitted , earned his keep , and perhaps a little over , by spending four curious days as scullion in the house of a fat Commissariat sergeant , from whose office-box , in an auspicious moment , he removed a little vellum ledger which he copied out -- it seemed to deal entirely with cattle and camel sales -- by moonlight , lying behind an outhouse , all through one hot night .
Then he returned the ledger to its place , and , at XXXXX 's word , left that service unpaid , rejoining him six miles down the road , the clean copy in his bosom .
Karachi Mahbub Qpeen co-religionists drug-box eyass horse-dealer office-box paint-box scullion