HE snorted indignantly, and walked away across the tram rails, his hump quivering with rage.

‘See! I have saved more than the bowl will cost thrice over. Now, mother, a little rice and some dried fish atop — yes, and some vegetable curry.’

A growl came out of the back of the shop, where a man lay. ‘He drove away the bull,’ said the woman in an undertone. ‘It is good to give to the poor.’ She took the bowl and returned it full of hot rice.

‘But my yogi is not a cow,’ said Kim gravely, making a hole with his fingers in the top of the mound. ‘A little curry is good, and a fried cake, and a morsel of conserve would please him, I think.’

‘It is a hole as big as thy head,’ said the woman fretfully. But she filled it, none the less, with good, steaming vegetable curry, clapped a dried cake atop, and a morsel of clarified butter on the cake, dabbed a lump of sour tamarind conserve at the side.