Said he : `` I will open a grocer 's shop , '' ' Kim retorted . Battle was fairly joined now , and they heard the old lady stiffen to attention . ` The priest 's son knows the names of his nurse and three Gods . Says he : `` Hear me , or I will curse you by the three million Great Ones . '' ' Decidedly this invisible had an arrow or two in his quiver . He went on : ' I am but a teacher of the alphabet . I have learned all the wisdom of the Sahibs . ' ` The Sahibs never grow old . They dance and they play like children when they are grandfathers . A strong-backed breed , ' piped the voice inside the palanquin . ' I have , too , our drugs which loosen humours of the head in hot and angry men . Sina well compounded when the moon stands in the proper House ; yellow earths I have -- arplan from China that makes a man renew his youth and astonish his household ; saffron from Kashmir , and the best salep of Kabul . Many people have died before -- ' ` That I surely believe , ' said Kim . ` They knew the value of my drugs . I do not give my sick the mere ink in which a charm is written , but hot and rending drugs which descend and wrestle with the evil . ' ` Very mightily they do so , ' sighed the old lady . The voice launched into an immense tale of misfortune and bankruptcy , studded with plentiful petitions to the Government . ` But for my fate , which overrules all , I had been now in Government employ . I bear a degree from the great school at Calcutta -- whither , maybe , the son of this House shall go . ' ` He shall indeed .
If our neighbour 's brat can in a few years be made an F A ' -LRB- First Arts -- she used the English word , of which she had heard so often -RRB- , ` how much more shall children clever as some that I know bear away prizes at rich XXXXX . '
Calcutta Gods House Kashmir Sahibs Sina earths humours palanquin whither