Progressive Education

When Kim was fifteen his father allowed him to withdraw from the school because he was so unhappy there and so much dislike with the other boys and their parents.
'I don't want that boy in the house again', said Colonel Greenfield
'He looks like a sheep killing dog'
'It is a walking corpse', said this St. Louis natured poisonous thing
Years later Kim settled that account.
When forewarned of her death he said 'It isn't every corpse that can walk, hers can't!'
The boys rotten clear through and he stinks like a pole cat', Judge Fariss pontificated.
But this was more or less true.
When angered, aroused or excited, Kim flushed bright red and steamed off a rank, a ruttish animal smell.
'The child is not wholesome', said Mr. Kindheart in his usual restraint.

Kim was a most unpopular boy in the school if not in the town of St. Louis.
'Ahh their got nothing to teach anyway' his father said, 'Well the headmaster is a fucking priest!'
Summers they spent at the farm and Kim loved squirrel hunting in the early morning.
And usually when hunting with Jerry Ellisar, who lived next door. Because Jerry had a slinky black hound dog. And everybody knows you can't find any squirrels without a dog to bark up the tree where the squirrel is.
Kim remembers a friend of his father's. And a un-obtrusively wealthy man who travelled all over the world studying unusual methods of hand to hand fighting. He wrote a book about it. Kim remembers him as looking very safe and happy. He could kill anyone in sight and he knew it! And that was good feeling!
The book was fascinating. Chinese practitioners who could kill with a soft twisting blow just in the right place and at the right time. The soft touch it is called. Kim hummed a funeral march happily.
A magnificent sulky old Indian who specialised in a lightning blow to the testicles. The golden target he called it.

'He was the most unpleasant man I have ever met', the writer reports. After a scant quarter hour in his company I was impotent for a full week.

So the writer as he tries to impress this old Midas, by breaking a stack of bricks with his Karate chop. The Indian sets up an equal stack and adds one brick. Then he just, sort o'lightly thumps the stack. And the writer points a finger at the top brick which is undamaged. The old practitioner lifts the top brick all the bricks under it have been shattered as if hit by a sledge hammer.

And a bartender in Paris had fashioned from his breath. By taking certain herbs he developed a breath so pestiferous that then standing almost six feet away breathed on me! Words cannot convey to vertiginous retching horror that enveloped me as I lost consciousness. For days after I shuddered at the memory at that awesome breath!
Well he beats the skunk at his own game but generally speaking when it comes down to hand-to-teeth-claw-poison, we all shock, fighting animals beat humans in any direction. So Kim had of course thought of leaving weapons but the only animal that has been taught to attack reliably on command is the dog. There are many other animals be vastly more efficient as fighting machines. The bobcat, the lynx, the incomparable wolverine that can drive a bear from its kill.

Kim looked in disdain at Jerry's dog, Rover. A scouting cowardly inefficient animal!
Kim usually spotted a squirrel before Rover could sniff it out. When Jerry wasn't around Kim could corner Rover, transfix with his witched airs he intoned 'Baaaad dog!'
And Rover begins to cower and cringe and whimper. And finally desperate to ingratiate himself he rolls on his back and pisses all over himself!
Well Kim enjoyed this spectacle! It was not enough to compensate for the continuos proximity this filthy, fawning, vicious, shit-eating beast!
'Oh but then who am I to be critical?', Kim thought philosophically.
Kevin just read a juicy story about African medicine men who capture hyenas and blind them with red hot needles and burn out their vocal chords as they intones certain spells. Binding the tortured animals to their will to fashion a silent dedicated instrument of death.
Kim looks speculatively at Rover and licks his lips!
And Rover creaks whimpering behind Jerry's legs.
The Colonel gills his pipe 'They attacked at dawn like grey shadows'
'I saw a boy go down hamstrung, next thing his throat is ripped out'
'I couldn't see what was doing it was like ghost attack. But the boys knew'
And the cry went up, 'Shmoom, shmoom'
That's the native word for hyenas blinded by their beastly medicine men!
Now we intended to capture a male gorilla, the mountain species there is somewhat smaller than the lowland breeds. So we had a cage just so big and big enough that I managed to nip into it and lock the door.
I'll never forget my boys pleading to be let in as the hyenas tore them apart.
That sight will haunt me to my dying day.
Couldn't charge it you know one boy was at the door 'Let me, let me in!
The blind animal panicked they couldn't understand my position and they screamed curses at me. Well Kim put it 'what can you expect from people with no breeding?!'
Oh yes, of course exactly, Kipling, you know the write chap, speaks of the lesser breed without the law. Awfully depressing all that!