Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated)

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Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 647

by Rudyard Kipling


  “Yes — me,” said Abanazar. “‘Twasn’t much, but after what you’ve said, Dicky, it was rather a coincidence, because I wired:

  “‘Aladdin now has got his wife,

  Your Emperor is appeased.

  I think you’d better come to life:

  We hope you’ve all been pleased.’

  “Funny how that old song came up in my head. That was fairly non-committal and encouragin’. The only flaw was that his Emperor wasn’t appeased by very long chalks. Stalky extricated himself from his mountain fastnesses and leafed up to Simla at his leisure, to be offered up on the horns of the altar.”

  “But,” I began, “surely the Commander-in-Chief is the proper — ”

  “His Excellency had an idea that if he blew up one single junior captain — same as King used to blow us up — he was holdin’ the reins of empire, and, of course, as long as he had that idea, Von Lennaert encouraged him. I’m not sure Von Lennaert didn’t put that notion into his head.”

  “They’ve changed the breed, then, since my time,” I said.

  “P’r’aps. Stalky was sent up for his wiggin’ like a bad little boy. I’ve reason to believe that His Excellency’s hair stood on end. He walked into Stalky for one hour — Stalky at attention in the middle of the floor, and (so he vowed) Von Lennaert pretending to soothe down His Excellency’s topknot in dumb show in the background. Stalky didn’t dare to look up, or he’d have laughed.”

  “Now, wherefore was Stalky not broken publicly?” said the Infant, with a large and luminous leer.

  “Ah, wherefore?” said Abanazar. “To give him a chance to retrieve his blasted career, and not to break his father’s heart. Stalky hadn’t a father, but that didn’t matter. He behaved like a — like the Sanawar Orphan Asylum, and His Excellency graciously spared him. Then he came round to my office and sat opposite me for ten minutes, puffing out his nostrils. Then he said, ‘Pussy, if I thought that basket-hanger — ’”

  “Hah! He remembered that,” said McTurk.

  “‘That two-anna basket-hanger governed India, I swear I’d become a naturalized Muscovite to-morrow. I’m a femme incomprise. This thing’s broken my heart. It’ll take six months’ shootin’-leave in India to mend it. Do you think I can get it, Pussy?’

  “He got it in about three minutes and a half, and seventeen days later he was back in the arms of Rutton Singh — horrid disgraced — with orders to hand over his command, etc., to Cathcart MacMonnie.”

  “Observe!” said Dick Four. “One colonel of the Political Department in charge of thirty Sikhs, on a hilltop. Observe, my children!”

  “Naturally, Cathcart not being a fool, even if he is a Political, let Stalky do his shooting within fifteen miles of Fort Everett for the next six months, and I always understood they and Rutton Singh and the prisoner were as thick as thieves. Then Stalky loafed back to his regiment, I believe. I’ve never seen him since.”

  “I have, though,” said McTurk, swelling with pride.

  We all turned as one man. “It was at the beginning of this hot weather. I was in camp in the Jullunder doab and stumbled slap on Stalky in a Sikh village; sitting on the one chair of state, with half the population grovellin’ before him, a dozen Sikh babies on his knees, an old harridan clappin’ him on the shoulder, and a garland o’ flowers round his neck. Told me he was recruitin’. We dined together that night, but he never said a word of the business at the Fort. Told me, though, that if I wanted any supplies I’d better say I was Koran Sahib’s bhai; and I did, and the Sikhs wouldn’t take my money.”

  “Ah! That must have been one of Rutton Singh’s villages,” said Dick Four; and we smoked for some time in silence.

  “I say,” said McTurk, casting back through the years, “did Stalky ever tell you how Rabbits-Eggs came to rock King that night?”

  “No,” said Dick Four. Then McTurk told. “I see,” said Dick Four, nodding. “Practically he duplicated that trick over again. There’s nobody like Stalky.”

  “That’s just where you make the mistake,” I said. “India’s full of Stalkies — Cheltenham and Haileybury and Marlborough chaps — that we don’t know anything about, and the surprises will begin when there is really a big row on.”

  “Who will be surprised?” said Dick Four.

  “The other side. The gentlemen who go to the front in first-class carriages. Just imagine Stalky let loose on the south side of Europe with a sufficiency of Sikhs and a reasonable prospect of loot. Consider it quietly.”

  “There’s something in that, but you’re too much of an optimist, Beetle,” said the Infant.

  “Well, I’ve a right to be. Ain’t I responsible for the whole thing? You needn’t laugh. Who wrote ‘Aladdin now has got his wife’ — eh?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” said Tertius.

  “Everything,” said I.

  “Prove it,” said the Infant.

  And I have.

  The Short Stories

  Kipling and his wife Carrie, Loos 1922

  CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF SHORT STORIES

  Please note: some stories appear more than once in the list due to being in more than one collection. To retain the collections’ original structures, duplicates have been left as they are.

  THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW

  THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE JUKES

  LISPETH.

  THREE AND — AN EXTRA.

  THROWN AWAY.

  MISS YOUGHAL’S SAIS.

  YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER.

  FALSE DAWN.

  THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES.

  CUPID’S ARROWS.

  HIS CHANCE IN LIFE.

  WATCHES OF THE NIGHT.

  THE OTHER MAN.

  CONSEQUENCES.

  THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN MCGOGGIN.

  A GERM DESTROYER.

  KIDNAPPED.

  THE ARREST OF LIEUTENANT GOLIGHTLY.

  THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO

  HIS WEDDED WIFE.

  THE BROKEN LINK HANDICAPPED.

  BEYOND THE PALE.

  IN ERROR.

  A BANK FRAUD.

  TOD’S AMENDMENT.

  IN THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH.

  PIG.

  THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS.

  THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE-CASE.

  VENUS ANNODOMINI.

  THE BISARA OF POOREE.

  THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS.

  THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN.

  ON THE STRENGTH OF A LIKENESS.

  WRESSLEY OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE.

  BY WORD OF MOUTH.

  TO BE HELD FOR REFERENCE.

  THE GOD FROM THE MACHINE

  OF THOSE CALLED

  PRIVATE LEAROYD’S STORY

  THE BIG DRUNK DRAF’

  THE WRECK OF THE VISIGOTH

  THE SOLID MULDOON

  WITH THE MAIN GUARD

  ‘GUARRD, TURN OUT!’

  GUARRD, TURN OUT!’

  IN THE MATTER OF A PRIVATE

  BLACK JACK

  L’ENVOI

  POOR DEAR MAMMA

  THE WORLD WITHOUT

  THE TENTS OF KEDAR

  WITH ANY AMAZEMENT

  THE GARDEN OF EDEN

  FATIMA

  THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

  THE SWELLING OF JORDAN

  L’ENVOI

  DRAY WARA YOW DEE

  THE JUDGMENT OF DUNGARA

  AT HOWLI THANA

  GEMINI

  AT TWENTY-TWO

  IN FLOOD TIME

  THE SENDING OF DANA DA

  ON THE CITY WALL

  ‘LOVE-O’WOMEN’

  THE BIG DRUNK DRAF’

  THE MUTINEY OF THE MAVERICKS

  THE MAN WHO WAS

  ONLY A SUBALTERN

  IN THE MATTER OF A PRIVATE

  THE LOST LEGION

  THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT

  JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE

  THE EDUCATION OF OTIS YEERE

  AT THE PIT’S MOUTH

  A WAYSIDE COMEDY

>   THE HILL OF ILLUSION

  A SECOND-RATE WOMAN

  ONLY A SUBALTERN

  IN THE MATTER OF A PRIVATE

  THE ENLIGHTENMENTS OF PAGETT, M.P.

  THE PHANTOM ‘RICKSHAW

  MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY

  THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE JUKES

  THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

  “THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD”

  WEE WILLIE WINKIE

  BAA, BAA, BLACK SHEEP

  HIS MAJESTY THE KING

  THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT

  PREFACE

  THE LANG MEN O’ LARUT

  REINGELDER AND THE GERMAN FLAG

  THE WANDERING JEW

  THROUGH THE FIRE

  THE FINANCES OF THE GODS

  THE AMIR’S HOMILY

  JEWS IN SHUSHAN

  THE LIMITATIONS OF PAMBE SERANG

  LITTLE TOBRAH

  BUBBLING WELL ROAD

  ‘THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT’

  GEORGIE PORGIE

  NABOTH

  THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS

  THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY

  THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD

  ON GREENHOW HILL

  THE MAN WHO WAS

  THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT

  WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY

  AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE

  THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS

  THE MARK OF THE BEAST

  THE RETURN OF IMRAY

  NAMGAY DOOLA

  BURTRAN AND BIMI

  MOTI GUJ — MUTINEER

  L’ENVOI

  TO THE TRUE ROMANCE

  THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC

  A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS

  MY LORD THE ELEPHANT

  ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION

  ‘THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD’

  HIS PRIVATE HONOUR

  A MATTER OF FACT

  THE LOST LEGION

  IN THE RUKH

  ‘BRUGGLESMITH’

  ‘LOVE-O’-WOMEN’

  THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT

  JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE

  THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC

  ANCHOR SONG

  MOWGLI’S BROTHERS

  HUNTING-SONG OF THE SEEONEE PACK

  KAA’S HUNTING

  ROAD-SONG OF THE BANDAR-LOG

  “TIGER! TIGER!”

  MOWGLI’S SONG

  THE WHITE SEAL

  LUKANNON

  “RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI”

  DARZEE’S CHANT

  TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS

  SHIV AND THE GRASSHOPPER

  HER MAJESTY’S SERVANTS

  PARADE-SONG OF THE CAMP ANIMALS

  HOW FEAR CAME

  THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE

  THE MIRACLE OF PURUN BHAGAT

  A SONG OF KABIR

  LETTING IN THE JUNGLE

  MOWGLI’S SONG AGAINST PEOPLE

  THE UNDERTAKERS

  A RIPPLE SONG

  THE KING’S ANKUS

  THE SONG OF THE LITTLE HUNTER

  QUIQUERN

  ‘ANGUTIVAUN TAINA’

  RED DOG

  CHIL’S SONG

  THE SPRING RUNNING

  THE OUTSONG

  THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS

  A WALKING DELEGATE

  THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF

  THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS

  THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA

  WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR: PART I

  WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR: PART II

  THE MALTESE CAT

  “BREAD UPON THE WATERS”

  AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION

  MY SUNDAY AT HOME

  THE BRUSHWOOD BOY

  STALKY & CO.

  “IN AMBUSH.”

  SLAVES OF THE LAMP: PART I.

  AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE.

  THE IMPRESSIONISTS.

  THE MORAL REFORMERS.

  A LITTLE PREP.

  THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY.

  THE LAST TERM.

  SLAVES OF THE LAMP: PART II.

  HOW THE WHALE GOT HIS THROAT

  HOW THE CAMEL GOT HIS HUMP

  HOW THE RHINOCEROS GOT HIS SKIN

  HOW THE LEOPARD GOT HIS SPOTS

  THE ELEPHANT’S CHILD

  THE SING-SONG OF OLD MAN KANGAROO

  THE BEGINNING OF THE ARMADILLOS

  HOW THE FIRST LETTER WAS WRITTEN

  HOW THE ALPHABET WAS MADE

  THE CRAB THAT PLAYED WITH THE SEA

  THE CAT THAT WALKED BY HIMSELF

  THE BUTTERFLY THAT STAMPED

  THE CAPTIVE

  POSEIDON’S LAW

  THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE

  THE RUNNERS

  A SAHIBS’ WAR

  THE WET LITANY

  “THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS”

  THE KING’S TASK

  THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER

  STEAM TACTICS

  THE NECESSITARIAN

  “WIRELESS”

  KASPAR’S SONG IN VARDA

  SONG OF THE OLD GUARD

  THE ARMY OF A DREAM

  “THEY”

  THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN

  MRS. BATHURST

  “OUR FATHERS ALSO”

  BELOW THE MILL DAM

  WELAND’S SWORD

  A TREE SONG

  YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR

  SIR RICHARD’S SONG

  HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN

  THE KNIGHTS OF THE JOYOUS VENTURE

  THORKILD’S SONG

  OLD MEN AT PEVENSEY

  THE RUNES ON WELAND’S SWORD

  A CENTURION OF THE THIRTIETH

  A BRITISH-ROMAN SONG (A.D. 406)

  ON THE GREAT WALL

  A SONG TO MITHRAS

  THE WINGED HATS

  A PICT SONG

  HAL O’ THE DRAFT

  A SMUGGLERS’ SONG

  THE BEE BOY’S SONG

  ‘DYMCHURCH FLIT’

  A THREE-PART SONG

  SONG OF THE FIFTH RIVER

  THE TREASURE AND THE LAW

  THE CHILDREN’S SONG

  AN HABITATION ENFORCED

  THE RECALL

  GARM — A HOSTAGE

  THE POWER OF THE DOG

  THE MOTHER HIVE

  THE BEES AND THE FLIES

  WITH THE NIGHT MAIL

  A STORY OF 2000 A. D.

  THE FOUR ANGELS

  A DEAL IN COTTON

  THE NEW KNIGHTHOOD

  THE PUZZLER

  LITTLE FOXES

  GALLIO’S SONG

  THE HOUSE SURGEON

  THE RABBI’S SONG

  ERASTASIUS OF THE WHANGHOA

  HER LITTLE RESPONSIBILITY

  A MENAGERIE ABOARD

  A SMOKE OF MANILA

  THE RED LAMP

  THE SHADOW OF HIS HAND

  A LITTLE MORE BEEF

  THE HISTORY OF A FALL

  GRIFFITHS THE SAFE MAN

  IT!

  A FALLEN IDOL

  NEW BROOMS

  TIGLATH PILESER

  THE LIKES O’ US

  HIS BROTHER’S KEEPER

  “SLEIPNER,” LATE “THURINDA”

  A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER

  CHATAUQUAED

  THE BOW FLUME CABLE-CAR

  IN PARTIBUS

  LETTERS ON LEAVE

  THE ADORATION OF THE MAGE

  A DEATH IN THE CAMP

  A REALLY GOOD TIME

  ON EXHIBITION

  THE THREE YOUNG MEN

  MY GREAT AND ONLY

  “THE BETRAYAL OF CONFIDENCES”

  THE NEW DISPENSATION — I

  THE NEW DISPENSATION — II

  THE LAST OF THE STORIES

  A CHARM

  INTRODUCTION

  COLD IRON

  GLORIANA

  THE LOOKING-GLASS

  THE WRONG THING

  MARKLAKE WITCHES

  THE KNIFE AND THE NAKED CHALK

  BROTHER SQUARE-TOES

  ‘A PRIEST IN SPITE OF HIMSELF’

>   THE CONVERSION OF ST WILFRID

  A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE

  SIMPLE SIMON

  THE TREE OF JUSTICE

  AS EASY AS A.B.C.

  FRIENDLY BROOK

  IN THE SAME BOAT

  THE HONOURS OF WAR

  THE DOG HERVEY

  THE VILLAGE THAT VOTED THE EARTH WAS FLAT

  IN THE PRESENCE

  REGULUS

  A TRANSLATION

  THE EDGE OF THE EVENING

  THE HORSE MARINES

  ‘MY SON’S WIFE’

  THE VORTEX

  ‘SWEPT AND GARNISHED’

  MARY POSTGATE

  WINNING THE VICTORIA CROSS

  THE WAY THAT HE TOOK

  AN UNQUALIFIED PILOT

  HIS GIFT

  THE MASTER-COOK

  “STALKY”

  THE HOUR OF THE ANGEL

  THE LAST LAP

  THE PARABLE OF BOY JONES

  A DEPARTURE

  THE BOLD ‘PRENTICE

  THE NURSES

  THE SON OF HIS FATHER

  AN ENGLISH SCHOOL

  A COUNTING-OUT SONG

  THE ENEMIES TO EACH OTHER

  WITH APOLOGIES TO THE SHADE OF MIRZA MIRKHOND

  THE CHANGELINGS

  SEA CONSTABLES

  A TALE OF ‘15

  THE VINEYARD

  ‘BANQUET NIGHT’

  ‘IN THE INTERESTS OF THE BRETHREN’

  TO THE COMPANIONS

  THE UNITED IDOLATERS

  THE CENTAURS

  ‘LATE CAME THE GOD’

  THE WISH HOUSE

  RAHERE

  THE SURVIVAL

  THE JANEITES

  JANE’S MARRIAGE

  THE PORTENT

  THE PROPHET AND THE COUNTRY

  GOW’S WATCH

  THE BULL THAT THOUGHT

  ALNASCHAR AND THE OXEN

  GIPSY VANS

  A MADONNA OF THE TRENCHES

  GOW’S WATCH

  THE BIRTHRIGHT

  THE PROPAGATION OF KNOWLEDGE

  A LEGEND OF TRUTH

  A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY

  WE AND THEY

  ON THE GATE

  A TALE OF ‘16

  THE SUPPORTS

  UNTIMELY

  THE EYE OF ALLAH

  THE LAST ODE

  THE GARDENER

  THE BURDEN

  ‘THY SERVANT A DOG’

  THE GREAT PLAY HUNT

  TOBY DOG

  THE SUPPLICATION OF THE BLACK ABERDEEN

  A SEA DOG

  HIS APOLOGIES

  ‘TEEM’: A TREASURE-HUNTER

  DAYSPRING MISHANDLED

  GERTRUDE’S PRAYER

  DINAH IN HEAVEN

  THE WOMAN IN HIS LIFE

  FOUR-FEET

  THE TOTEM

  THE TIE

  THE CHURCH THAT WAS AT ANTIOCH

  THE DISCIPLE

  THE PLAYMATE

  AUNT ELLEN

  NAAMAN’S SONG

  THE MOTHER’S SON

  FAIRY-KIST

  THE COINER

  A NAVAL MUTINY

  THE DEBT

 

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