but the sweetmeat seller in the camp lent him a little tom-tom -- a drum beaten with the flat of the hand -- and he sat down, cross-legged, before kala nag as the stars began to come out, the tom-tom in his lap, and he thumped and he thumped and he thumped, and the more he thought of the great honor that had been done to him, the more he thumped, all alone among the elephant fodder.