Kim’s Game
Kim O’Hara starts his apprenticeship as a British spy with a little competition.
1901
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Kim O’Hara starts his apprenticeship as a British spy with a little competition.
1901
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
In the city of Shimla, summer capital of the British Raj, a jeweller named Lurgan is schooling young orphan Kim O’Hara for intelligence work in Afghanistan. A Hindu boy already in his care has become so jealous of this ‘stranger’ that he has tried to poison Lurgan, and is now sobbing with remorse, which the canny Lurgan turns to advantage.
“IN a little while he will go away again. But now he is at school, and thou shalt be his teacher. Play the Play of the Jewels against him. I will keep tally.”
The child dried his tears at once, and dashed to the back of the shop, whence he returned with a copper tray. “Let them come from thy hand, for he may say that I knew them before.”
“Gently — gently,” the man replied, and from a drawer under the table dealt a half handful of clattering trifles into the tray.
“Now,” said the child, waving an old newspaper. “Look on them as long as thou wilt, stranger. Count and, if need be, handle. One look is enough for me.” He turned his back proudly.
“But what is the game?”
“When thou hast counted and handled and art sure that thou canst remember them all, I cover them with this paper, and thou must tell over the tally to Lurgan Sahib, I will write mine.”
“Oah!” The instinct of competition waked in his breast. He bent over the tray.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
What was the aim of the Play of the Jewels?
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Mr Lurgan took Kim as a lodger. A Hindu boy was jealous. He put arsenic in Mr Lurgan’s food.