Thy fate and mine seem on one string . What a tale for the healer of pearls ! Now swiftly with the saddle-bags and the cooking-platter . We will take out the horses and away to Simla . ' Swiftly -- as Orientals understand speed -- with long explanations , with abuse and windy talk , carelessly , amid a hundred checks for little things forgotten , the untidy camp broke up and led the half-dozen stiff and fretful horses along the Kalka road in the fresh of the rain-swept dawn . Kim , regarded as Mahbub Ali 's favourite by all who wished to stand well with the Pathan , was not called upon to work . They strolled on by the easiest of stages , halting every few hours at a wayside shelter . Very many Sahibs travel along the Kalka road ; and , as Mahbub Ali says , every young Sahib must needs esteem himself a judge of a horse , and , though he be over head in debt to the money-lender , must make as if to buy . That was the reason that Sahib after Sahib , rolling along in a stage-carriage , would stop and open talk . Some would even descend from their vehicles and feel the horses ' legs ; asking inane questions , or , through sheer ignorance of the vernacular , grossly insulting the imperturbable trader . ` When first I dealt with Sahibs , and that was when Colonel Soady Sahib was Governor of Fort Abazai and flooded the Commissioner 's camping-ground for spite , ' Mahbub confided to Kim as the boy filled his pipe under a tree , ' I did not know how greatly they were fools , and this made me wroth . As thus -- , ' and he told Kim a tale of an expression , misused in all innocence , that doubled Kim up with mirth . ` Now I see , however , ' -- he exhaled smoke slowly -- ` that it is with them as with all men -- in certain matters they are wise , and in others most foolish . Very foolish it is to use the wrong word to a stranger ; for though the heart may be clean of offence , how is the stranger to know that ? He is more like to search truth with a dagger . ' ` True . True talk , ' said Kim solemnly . ` Fools speak of a cat when a woman is brought to bed , for instance . I have heard them . ' ` Therefore , in one situate as thou art , it particularly behoves thee to remember this with both kinds of faces .
Among Sahibs , never forgetting thou art a XXXXX ; among the folk of Hind , always remembering thou art -- ' He paused , with a puzzled smile .
Pathan Sahib Sahibs Simla camping-ground hours offence saddle-bags situate wroth