“The house be unblessed!” (It is impossible to give exactly the old lady’s word.) “Thank the Gods as a priest if thou wilt, but thank me, if thou carest, as a son. Heavens above! Have I shifted thee and lifted thee and slapped and twisted thy ten toes to find texts flung at my head? Somewhere a mother must have borne thee to break her heart. What used thou to her—son?” “I had no mother, my mother,” said Kim. “She died, they tell me, when I was young.” “_Hai mai!_ Then none can say I have robbed her of any right if—when thou takest the road again and this house is but one of a thousand used for shelter and forgotten, after an easy-flung blessing. No matter. I need no blessings, but—but—” She stamped her foot at the poor relation. “Take up the trays to the house. What is the good of stale food in the room, O woman of ill-omen?” “I ha—have borne a son in my time too, but he died,” whimpered the bowed sister-figure behind the _chudder_. “Thou knowest he died! I only waited for the order to take away the tray.” “It is I that am the woman of ill-omen,” cried the old lady penitently. “We that go down to the _chattris_ (the big umbrellas above the burning-ghats where the priests take their last dues) clutch hard at the bearers of the _chattis_ (water-jars—young folk full of the pride of life, she meant; but the pun is clumsy). When one cannot dance in the festival one must e’en look out of the window, and grandmothering takes all a woman’s time. Thy master gives me all the charms I now desire for my daughter’s eldest, by reason—is it?—that he is wholly free from sin. The _hakim_ is brought very low these days. He goes about poisoning my servants for lack of their betters.” “What _hakim_, mother?” “That very Dacca man who gave me the pill which rent me in three pieces. He cast up like a strayed camel a week ago, vowing that he and thou had been blood-brothers together up Kulu-way, and feigning great anxiety for thy health. He was very thin and hungry, so I gave orders to have him stuffed too—him and his anxiety!” “I would see him if he is here.” “He eats five times a day, and lances boils for my hinds to save himself from an apoplexy. He is so full of anxiety for thy health that he sticks to the cook-house door and stays himself with scraps. He will keep. We shall never get rid of him.” “Send him here, mother”—the twinkle returned to Kim’s eye for a flash—“and I will try.” “I’ll send him, but to chase him off is an ill turn. At least he had the sense to fish the Holy One out of the brook; thus, as the Holy One did _not_ say, acquiring merit.” “He is a very wise _hakim_. Send him, mother.” “Priest praising priest? A miracle! If he is any friend of thine (ye squabbled at your last meeting) I’ll hale him here with horse-ropes and—and give him a caste-dinner afterwards, my son ... Get up and see the world! This lying abed is the mother of seventy devils ... my son! my son!”