The second time he set out in search, and ended by bruising his nose against a box that certainly spoke with a human tongue, but in no sort of human accent.

It seemed to end in a tin trumpet and to be joined by wires to a smaller box on the floor--so far, at least, as he could judge by touch.

And the voice, very hard and whirring, came out of the trumpet.
Kim rubbed his nose and grew furious, thinking, as usual, in Hindi.
'This with a beggar from the bazar might be good, but--I am a Sahib and the son of a Sahib and, which is twice as much more beside, a student of Nucklao.

Yess' (here he turned to English), 'a boy of St Xavier's.
Damn Mr Lurgan's eyes!--It is some sort of machinery like a sewing-machine.

Oh, it is a great cheek of him--we are not frightened that way at Lucknow--No!' Then in Hindi: 'But what does he gain?
He is only a trader--I am in his shop.