Native-fashion, he curled himself up on a stripped cot and went to sleep.

An angry man stumped down the veranda, woke him up, and said he was a schoolmaster.

This was enough for Kim, and he retired into his shell.

He could just puzzle out the various English Police notices in Lahore city, because they affected his comfort; and among the many guests of the woman who looked after him had been a queer German who painted scenery for the Parsee travelling theatre.

He told Kim that he had been 'on the barricades in 'Forty-eight,' and therefore--at least that was how it struck Kim--he would teach the boy to write in return for food.