Three days through , when the child was sick , she talked to me . ' ` Arre ! and to whom else should I talk ? The boy 's mother knew nothing , and the father -- in the nights of the cold weather it was -- `` Pray to the Gods , '' said he , forsooth , and turning over , snored ! ' ' I gave her the charm . What is an old man to do ? ' '' ` To abstain from action is well -- except to acquire merit . '' ' ` Ah chela , if thou desertest me , I am all alone . ' ` He found his milk-teeth easily at any rate , ' said the old lady . ` But all priests are alike . ' Kim coughed severely . Being young , he did not approve of her flippancy . ` To importune the wise out of season is to invite calamity . ' ` There is a talking mynah ' -- the thrust came back with the well-remembered snap of the jewelled fore-finger -- ` over the stables which has picked up the very tone of the family priest . Maybe I forget honour to my guests , but if ye had seen him double his fists into his belly , which was like a half-grown gourd , and cry : `` Here is the pain ! '' ye would forgive . I am half minded to take the hakim 's medicine . He sells it cheap , and certainly it makes him fat as Shiv 's own bull . He does not deny remedies , but I doubted for the child because of the in-auspicious colour of the bottles . ' The lama , under cover of the monologue , had faded out into the darkness towards the room prepared .
` Thou hast angered him , belike , ' said XXXXX .
Arre Kim Shiv chela fore-finger forsooth hakim lama mynah nights