'That is for a memory between thee and me--my pencase.

It is something old--even as I am.' It was a piece of ancient design, Chinese, of an iron that is not smelted these days; and the collector's heart in the Curator's bosom had gone out to it from the first.

For no persuasion would the lama resume his gift.
'When I return, having found the River, I will bring thee a written picture of the Padma Samthora such as I used to make on silk at the lamassery.

Yes--and of the Wheel of Life,' he chuckled, 'for we be craftsmen together, thou and I.' The Curator would have detained him: they are few in the world who still have the secret of the conventional brush-pen Buddhist pictures which are, as it were, half written and half drawn.

But the lama strode out, head high in air, and pausing an instant before the great statue of a Bodhisat in meditation, brushed through the turnstiles.
Kim followed like a shadow.