How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #4
Kim hailed a sweeper, who promptly retorted with a piece of unnecessary insolence, in the natural belief that the European boy could not follow it. The low, quick answer undeceived him. Kim put his fettered soul into it, thankful for the late chance to abuse somebody in the tongue he knew best. 'And now, go to the nearest letter-writer in the bazar and tell him to come here. I would write a letter.' (6.24)
Have you ever had a chance to travel in a country where everyone speaks a language that you are just learning? While we think that this kind of traveling is a really great experience in general, we aren't actually bringing this up as a PSA for study abroad programs. We're asking because it's such a fantasy of second- or third-language learners everywhere to become super-fluent in whatever language you're studying—to be so fluent that, if you overhear someone saying something about you, you can just jump in and talk back to them in their own language.
And that is what Kim is doing here: he is all dressed up in his school uniform, looking like a regular British kid. This Indian street-sweeper just assumes that Kim won't understand the "unnecessary insolence" (in other words, the trash talk) of his reply, since the sweeper isn't speaking in English. But Kim does know what the sweeper says, and he answers back in the guy's own language.
Quote #5
'Ohe', Mahbub Ali,' he whispered, 'have a care!'
The horse was reined back almost on its haunches, and forced towards the culvert.
'Never again,' said Mahbub, 'will I take a shod horse for night-work. They pick up all the bones and nails in the city.' He stooped to lift its forefoot, and that brought his head within a foot of Kim's.
'Down—keep down,' he muttered. 'The night is full of eyes.'
'Two men wait thy coming behind the horse-trucks. They will shoot thee at thy lying down, because there is a price on thy head. I heard, sleeping near the horses.' (8.84-7)
One effect of the fact that this is a spy story is that you get the feeling that there is always someone watching, that someone is always planning to harm one of our characters. So, here, Kim stumbles on an assassination plot against Mahbub Ali more or less by chance; there is also a price on the Babu's head. And when Agent E23 stumbles into Kim's life, he is on the run from killers from the south of India.
Just as it is the job of these Secret Service agents to watch the people around them for signs of betrayal and intrigue, it is also the danger of their jobs that these agents are constantly under surveillance by potential enemies. Throughout this novel, Kipling implies a huge network of unseen allies and enemies not unlike contemporary ideas about both terrorism and guerilla warfare. In Kim, Kipling foresees a model of modern warfare that is not fought obviously and openly between states, but that is conducted secretly, through spying and secret agents.
Quote #6
'Never mind your partner. Where are your horse-trucks?'
'A little to this side of the farthest place where they make lamps for the trains.'—
'The signal-box! Yes.'
'And upon the rail nearest to the road upon the right-hand side—looking up the line thus. But as regards Lutuf Ullah—a tall man with a broken nose, and a Persian greyhound Aie!'
The boy had hurried off to wake up a young and enthusiastic policeman; for, as he said, the Railway had suffered much from depredations in the goods-yard. Mahbub Ali chuckled in his dyed beard.
'They will walk in their boots, making a noise, and then they will wonder why there are no fakirs. They are very clever boys—Barton Sahib and Young Sahib.' (8.106-11)
It's funny: for a book that is so committed to British administration of India, Kipling really doesn't seem to think much of British bureaucracy. Mahbub Ali wants to get the English to help him to get rid of these two assassins that Kim has spotted, so he makes up this whole story about looking for his partner Lutuf Ullah, while just happening to mention two guys lying in wait near his horse-trucks. He wants the English forces to think that they have gotten the idea to arrest these two men, because they will be more likely to help him if they think the idea is all theirs.
Still, even while this scene with Mahbub Ali's skillful manipulations pokes fun at the arrogance of these low-level British government employees ("Barton Sahib and Young Sahib"), they also successfully throw Mahbub Ali's two potential assassins in jail. Even when Kipling makes fun of the British Indian state, he still clearly believes that it functions pretty well, for the most part.