The old lady confided to Kim that these rare levels were beyond her.

She liked charms with plenty of ink that one could wash off in water, swallow, and be done with.

Else what was the use of the Gods?
She liked men and women, and she spoke of them--of kinglets she had known in the past; of her own youth and beauty; of the depredations of leopards and the eccentricities of love Asiatic; of the incidence of taxation, rack-renting, funeral ceremonies, her son-in-law (this by allusion, easy to be followed), the care of the young, and the age's lack of decency.

And Kim, as interested in the life of this world as she soon to leave it, squatted with his feet under the hem of his robe, drinking all in, while the lama demolished one after another every theory of body-curing put forward by Hurree Babu.
At noon the Babu strapped up his brass-bound drug-box, took his patent-leather shoes of ceremony in one hand, a gay blue-and-white umbrella in the other, and set off northwards to the Doon, where, he said, he was in demand among the lesser kings of those parts.
'We will go in the cool of the evening, chela,' said the lama.

'That doctor, learned in physic and courtesy, affirms that the people among these lower hills are devout, generous, and much in need of a teacher.
In a very short time--so says the hakim--we come to cool air and the smell of pines.' 'Ye go to the Hills?
And by Kulu road?
Oh, thrice happy!' shrilled the old lady.