'We grow stiff, I think.' The weight of a six-foot man is not light to steady through miles of crowded streets, and Kim, loaded down with bundles and packages for the way, was glad to reach the shadow of the railway bridge.
'Here we eat,' he said resolutely, as the Kamboh, blue-robed and smiling, hove in sight, a basket in one hand and the child in the other.
'Fall to, Holy Ones!' he cried from fifty yards.

(They were by the shoal under the first bridge-span, out of sight of hungry priests.) 'Rice and good curry, cakes all warm and well scented with hing [asafoetida], curds and sugar.

King of my fields,'-- this to the small son--'let us show these holy men that we Jats of Jullundur can pay a service ...

I had heard the Jains would eat nothing that they had not cooked, but truly'-- he looked away politely over the broad river--'where there is no eye there is no caste.' 'And we,' said Kim, turning his back and heaping a leafplatter for the lama, 'are beyond all castes.' They gorged themselves on the good food in silence.

Nor till he had licked the last of the sticky sweetstuff from his little finger did Kim note that the Kamboh too was girt for travel.
'If our roads lie together,' he said roughly, 'I go with thee.