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 Mahbub 's word , left that service unpaid , rejoining him six miles down the road , the clean copy in his bosom . ` That soldier is a small fish , ' Mahbub Ali explained , ` but in time we shall catch the larger one . He only sells oxen at two prices -- one for himself and one for the Government -- which I do not think is a sin . ' ` Why could not I take away the little book and be done with it ? ' ` Then he would have been frightened , and he would have told his master . Then we should miss , perhaps , a great number of new rifles which seek their way up from Quetta to the North . The Game is so large that one sees but a little at a time . ' ` Oho ! ' said Kim , and held his tongue . That was in the monsoon holidays , after he had taken the prize for mathematics .
The Christmas holidays he spent -- deducting ten days for private amusements -- with Lurgan XXXXX , where he sat for the most part in front of a roaring wood-fire -- Jakko road was four feet deep in snow that year -- and -- the small Hindu had gone away to be married -- helped Lurgan to thread pearls .
Ali Arabs Kabulis Kim Sahib office-box paint-box tirings tram-horses yarak