` Five hundred -- a thousand -- as many as he might ask for . ' ` Good . And for how long might such a boy live after the news was told ? ' He smiled merrily at Lurgan 's Sahib 's very beard . ` Ah ! That is to be well thought of . Perhaps if he were very clever , he might live out the day -- but not the night . By no means the night . ' ` Then what is the Babu 's pay if so much is put upon his head ? ' ` Eighty -- perhaps a hundred -- perhaps a hundred and fifty rupees ; but the pay is the least part of the work . From time to time , God causes men to be born -- and thou art one of them -- who have a lust to go abroad at the risk of their lives and discover news -- today it may be of far-off things , tomorrow of some hidden mountain , and the next day of some near-by men who have done a foolishness against the State . These souls are very few ; and of these few , not more than ten are of the best . Among these ten I count the Babu , and that is curious . How great , therefore , and desirable must be a business that brazens the heart of a Bengali ! ' ` True . But the days go slowly for me . I am yet a boy , and it is only within two months I learned to write Angrezi . Even now I can not read it well . And there are yet years and years and long years before I can be even a chain-man . ' ` Have patience , Friend of all the World ' -- Kim started at the title .
` Would I had a few of the XXXXX that so irk thee .
Angrezi Babu Bengali Kim Lurgan Sahib chain-man days night years