Thus do foolish women drag us from the Way ! ' Hurree Babu came out from behind the dovecote washing his teeth with ostentatious ritual . Full-fleshed , heavy-haunched , bull-necked , and deep-voiced , he did not look like ' a fearful man ' . Kim signed almost imperceptibly that matters were in good train , and when the morning toilet was over , Hurree Babu , in flowery speech , came to do honour to the lama . They ate , of course , apart , and afterwards the old lady , more or less veiled behind a window , returned to the vital business of green-mango colics in the young . The lama 's knowledge of medicine was , of course , sympathetic only . He believed that the dung of a black horse , mixed with sulphur , and carried in a snake-skin , was a sound remedy for cholera ; but the symbolism interested him far more than the science . Hurree Babu deferred to these views with enchanting politeness , so that the lama called him a courteous physician . Hurree Babu replied that he was no more than an inexpert dabbler in the mysteries ; but at least -- he thanked the Gods therefore -- he knew when he sat in the presence of a master . He himself had been taught by the Sahibs , who do not consider expense , in the lordly halls of Calcutta ; but , as he was ever first to acknowledge , there lay a wisdom behind earthly wisdom -- the high and lonely lore of meditation . Kim looked on with envy . The Hurree Babu of his knowledge -- oily , effusive , and nervous -- was gone ; gone , too , was the brazen drug-vendor of overnight . There remained -- polished , polite , attentive -- a sober , learned son of experience and adversity , gathering wisdom from the lama 's lips . 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 -LRB- this by allusion , easy to be followed -RRB- , 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 , XXXXX in physic and courtesy , affirms that the people among these lower hills are devout , generous , and much in need of a teacher .
acknowledge ate drag followed learned liked look looked said wash