‘It is written above the door — all can enter.’

‘Without payment?’

‘I go in and out.  I am no banker,’ laughed Kim.

‘Alas!  I am an old man.  I did not know.’  Then, fingering his rosary, he half turned to the Museum.

‘What is your caste?  Where is your house?  Have you come far?’ Kim asked.

’I came by Kulu — from beyond the Kailas — but what know you?  From the Hills where’ — he sighed — ’the air and water are fresh and cool.’

‘Aha!  Khitai [a Chinaman],’ said Abdullah proudly.  Fook Shing had once chased him out of his shop for spitting at the joss above the boots.

‘Pahari [a hillman],’ said little Chota Lal.

’Aye, child — a hillman from hills thou’lt never see.  Didst hear of Bhotiyal [Tibet]?  I am no Khitai, but a Bhotiya [Tibetan], since you must know — a lama — or, say, a guru in your tongue.’

‘A guru from Tibet,’ said Kim.  ’I have not seen such a man.  They be Hindus in Tibet, then?’

’We be followers of the Middle Way, living in peace in our lamasseries, and I go to see the Four Holy Places before I die.  Now do you, who are children, know as much as I do who am old.’  He smiled benignantly on the boys.

‘Hast thou eaten?’

He fumbled in his bosom and drew forth a worn, wooden begging-bowl.  The boys nodded.  All priests of their acquaintance begged.

‘I do not wish to eat yet.’  He turned his head like an old tortoise in the sunlight.  ’Is it true that there are many images in the Wonder House of Lahore?’ He repeated the last words as one making sure of an address.

‘That is true,’ said Abdullah.  ’It is full of heathen busts.  Thou also art an idolater.’

‘Never mind him,’ said.  Kim.  ’That is the Government’s house and there is no idolatry in it, but only a Sahib with a white beard.  Come with me and I will show.’

‘Strange priests eat boys,’ whispered Chota Lal.

‘And he is a stranger and a but-parast [idolater],’ said Abdullah, the Mohammedan.

Kim laughed.  ‘He is new.  Run to your mothers’ laps, and be safe.  Come!’

Kim clicked round the self-registering turnstile; the old man followed and halted amazed.  In the entrance-hall stood the larger figures of the Greco-Buddhist sculptures done, savants know how long since, by forgotten workmen whose hands were feeling, and not unskilfully, for the mysteriously transmitted Grecian touch.  There were hundreds of pieces, friezes of figures in relief, fragments of statues and slabs crowded with figures that had encrusted the brick walls of the Buddhist stupas and viharas of the North Country and now, dug up and labelled, made the pride of the Museum.  In open-mouthed wonder the lama turned to this and that, and finally checked in rapt attention before a large alto-relief representing a coronation or apotheosis of the Lord Buddha.  The Master was represented seated on a lotus the petals of which were so deeply undercut as to show almost detached.  Round Him was an adoring hierarchy of kings, elders, and old-time Buddhas.  Below were lotus-covered waters with fishes and water-birds.  Two butterfly-winged devas held a wreath over His head; above them another pair supported an umbrella surmounted by the jewelled headdress of the Bodhisat.