The happy time brightly retold by “ Septimus” in Indian Ink was the time when the world discovered Rudyard Kipling and enrolled him in its “Celebrities At Home.” He then said that he might go up like the rocket and come down like its stick! It was the time that the Indian Railway Library was being reissued in England, volume by volume, the best railway reading ever offered for a journey. (By the way, that reminds one that Murray the publisher once
issued a series of “Books Suited for Railway Readers,’’ and volumes number one and two were “ Abercrombie,” “On the Intellectual Powers and on the Philosophy of the Moral Feelings”! Heavens! what railway reading!) The Wheeler Indian Railway Library had the following books by Kipling, “ Soldiers Three,” “ In Black and White,” “ The Story of the Gadsbys,” “ The Phantom Rickshaw,” “ Wee Willie Winkie,” “ Under the Deodars,” and last, and rarest, “ Letters of Marque,” of which I understand only three or four copies were ever sold, in this form. The rare cover is reproduced as an illustration in this present book. Some pictures of the other Railway Library covers are to be seen, by the interested, in a book entitled “ Kiplingiana,” issued in New York in 1899 by Mansfield & Wessels. This is a pleasant little volume produced with great publishing taste and skill.
The cunning charm of many of the illustrated covers, etc., to the Indian stories designed by John Lockwood Kipling will delight for all time the fortunate possessors, but will not surprise those who know that the Kipling family possess trained tastes for the graphic arts. Recently, it is interesting to record, a series of most comical drawings by Rudyard Kipling’s great kinsman, Burne- Jones, were exhibited to the members of the London Library, St. James’s Square. Many were upon notepaper, stamped Rottingdean, Brighton — Mr. Kipling’s own home for some time.
Three books of the early Indian sketches of Rudyard Kipling were suppressed: “ The Smith Administration,” “ Letters of Marque No i,” and “ The City of Dreadful Night.” This latter volume had one of the few covers that were designed for the Indian Railway Library by the artist- author, Brownlow Fforde. The First (English) Edition bore attached to the title-page the following amende honor-
able: “The Publishers beg to state that at the time of printing this Work they had overlooked the fact that the title had been previously used for a volume of Poems by the late James Thomson (B.V.). They have, however, received the kind permission of Mr. Thomson’s Publishers to use it.” The material of which these three books are composed was reissued in the statutory Twenty Volumes of Kipling’s prose that are in all good libraries. But there is still a volume that somewhat persistently eludes the Kiplingite; unless he is as rich as a Hun secret agent. The volume is entitled “ Abaft the Funnel,” taken from its own epigraph, “ Men in pajamas, sitting abaft the funnel and swapping lies of the purple seas.” The author at one time had no intention to reprint these efforts, so we understand. But they are well worth the propriety and dignity of book-form, and he has not suffered any disservice. The same treat-
ment was accorded certain early miscellanea of James Thomson, and the Editor of that collection said: 4 4 Believing as I do that James Thomson is, since Shelley, the most brilliant genius who has wielded a pen ... I take a natural pride and pleasure in rescuing the following articles from burial in the great mausoleum of the Periodical Press.” Verb. sap. The various items that make the volume “ Abaft the Funnel “ may be roughly grouped into three sets of stories and sketches as follows : —
I.
THE ENGLISH IN INDIA.
The Likes of Us.
His Brother’s Keeper.
A Supplementary Chapter.
Tiglath Pileser.
“Sleipner,” late “ Thurinda.”
A Fallen Idol.
New Brooms.
II.
LIFE IN LONDON.
Letters On Leave.
The Adoration of the Magi.
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. and II.
The Last Of and The Stories.
III.
TALES OF TRAVEL.
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.
Griffiths, the Safe Man.
It.
Chatauquaed.
The Bow Flume Cable-Car.
In addition to the foregoing there are a parody and a poem, the latter oddly entitled “In Partibus.” If, as one may fairly assume, the author really means this to be read as “In Partibus Infidelium” that is to say, “ In Unbelieving Countries,” the poem probably belongs to the period of his exile in London-Under-the-Fog, circa 1889, when attempts were made by the well-intentioned to “ lionise him “ —
“But I consort with long-haired things In velvet collar-rolls,
Who talk about the Aims of Art,
And * theories ‘ and 1 goals,’
And moo and coo with women-folk
About their blessed souls.”
The parody above noted stands outside the three groupings we suggested.
“The History of a Fall,” as it is entitled, can hardly be described as a story. It is a sketch of a comic episode narrated partly in English, partly in a parody of the French idiom of the three-fifty yellow-back. Like a good deal of the matter in “ Abaft the Funnel,” it partakes of the nature of a frisk (as Saltus puts it), a frolic, a maffick in ink. The comic or parodic condensed novel has amused several fun-masters, Thackeray, Bret Harte, Burnand, say; while I believe that the delightful and distinguished Stephen Laycock must be making a fortune as well as a reputation from just that type of literature. Their authors may think them mere ink-potterings, but they are things difficult to do.
“The Likes o’ Us” is a soldier story of the time and style of the ever-living “ Soldiers Three.” Indeed change but the name of the protagonist, Gunner
Barnabas, and you get quite a Mulvaney yarn. The story begins by the G.O.C. at Simla talking to its writer about Tommy Atkins: “ But the point on which he dwelt most pompously was the ease with which Private Thomas Atkins could be ‘handled’ as he called it. ‘ Only feed him and give him a little work to do, and you can do anything with him,’said the General Officer Commanding. * There’s no refinement about Tommy, you know; and one is very like another. They’ve all the same ideas and traditions and prejudices. They’re all big children.’ “
There followed a meeting between the narrator and Gunner Barnabas, who was in the Mountain Battery, and sitting upon a soldier, “ a khaki-coloured volcano of blasphemy,” till the said soldier became sober. There had been a conflict of view-points and the Gunner was nearly shot by his bemused companion, a little private, bedrunken and yet convalescing after fever. Finally, Gunner Barnabas, when the private had recovered from the half-murderous mania that had seized him, carried the silly little chap back towards barracks, shouting, “ It’s the likes o’ ‘im that brings shame on the likes o’ us.” A grim story of one of the darker sides of soldiering life but not, as I take it, meant to glorify brutality of threat or deed, but meant to show once more that order, duty, and decent living must and shall hold sway in the Army. Oddly, the next story is called’’ His Brother’s Keeper,’’ and deals with the moral responsibility that a man sometimes has in the matter of a colleague. Upon the subject of this big theme, “ Am I My Brother’s Keeper? “ the stylist Editor of The Hibbert says in an essay: “ Since it was Cain who asked the question, the inference has been drawn, most impudently, that all men who answer in the negative belong to the tribe of Cain. The negative answer has come to be regarded as one of the characteristic marks of a bad man — in fact, the very brand of Cain. Contrariwise, the acceptance of the position of keeper to one’s brother is usually taken as an unequ
ivocal sign of grace.”
In Mr. Kipling’s strong, tense story, the brave man upon whom the burden of decision was laid, did not hesitate but answered the question in the affirmative and elected to be his brother’s keeper, for a certain time risking life or limb thereby, but choosing conscience before Cain.
Stovey, at work upon a canal with the man “ just above him,” goes mad and plots murder with a Martini. His intended victim gets the gun away upon the pretext that there is a pariah dog in his room — and by chance there was! The ending is quaint and unforeseen : “ Ever meet the man again? “ “ Yes; once at Sheik Katan dak- bungalow — trailing — the big brindled pi after him.”
“Oh, it was real, then? I thought it was arranged for the occasion.”
“Not a bit. It was a pukka pi. Stovey seemed to remember me in the same way that a horse seems to remember. I fancy his brain was a little cloudy. We tiffined together — after the pi had been fed, if you please — and Stovey said to me: ‘ See that dog? He saved my life once. Oh, by the way, I believe you were there, too, weren’t you? ‘ “
The story is told in a club smoking- room, and it has life and strength from its settings, the comments of its listeners and their personalities, etched with just a few short sharp strokes. It is a model for tale-tellers.
“A Supplementary Chapter” is another story of Mrs. Hauksbee, and should be read in connection with “ The Education of Otis Yeere,” to which it refers. In addition to the brilliant schemer, Mrs. Hauksbee, we again meet Mrs. Mallowe and Mrs. Reiver, of whom we can now learn something more :
“She was a person without invention. She used to get her ideas from the men she captured, and this led to some eccentric changes of character. For a month or two she would act a la Madonna, and try Theo for a change if she fancied Theo’s ways suited her beauty. Then she would attempt the dark and fiery Lilith, and so on and so on, exactly as she absorbed the new notion. But there was always Mrs. Reiver — hard, selfish, stupid Mrs. Reiver — at the back of each transformation. Mrs. Hauksbee christened her the Magic Lantern on account of this borrowed mutability. ‘ It just depends upon the slide,’ said Mrs. Hauksbee. 4 The case is the only permanent thing in the exhibition. But that, thank Heaven, is getting old.’ “
We meet also, in this Simla intrigue, with Watchett of “ a vicious little three- cornered Department that was always stamping on the toes of the Elect,” and Trewinnard who plays an important part and is the direct cause of some of the author’s obiter dicta.
“Trewinnard had been spoilt by overmuch petting, and the devil of vanity that rides nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand made him believe as he did. He had been too long one woman’s property; and that belief will sometimes drive a man to throw the best things in the world behind him, from rank perversity.”
Trewinnard and Mrs. Mallowe had an understanding about things, but it wore thin and he took to discussing things with Mrs. Reiver. Then Hatchett, Trewinnard, and the ladies become mixed rather seriously. The story persistently reminds one of Henry James. It certainly has what some one has admirably attributed to the latter, “ the note of secret, serious comprehension between the characters.” But the note of shrewd and forthright comment is wholly Kipling, as in the following phrases — and there are many equally shrewd in this “Supplementary Chapter”:
“Some people say that the Supreme Government is the Devil. It is more like the Deep Sea. Anything that you throw into it disappears for weeks, and comes to light hacked and furred at the edges, crusted with weeds and shells and almost unrecognisable. The bold man who would dare to give it a file of love- letters would be amply rewarded. It would overlay them with original comments and marginal notes, and work them piecemeal into D. 0. dockets. Few things, from a letter or a whirlpool to a sausage-machine or a hatching hen, are more interesting and peculiar than the Supreme Government.”
“Tiglath Pileser” and the story that follows “ Sleipner,” late “ Thurinda,” deal with horses. Tiglath Pileser is the name given by the author to a rogue of a horse he purchases cheap, and the description of his antics is wildly but deliciously funny. Indeed I do not know where in all fiction one could meet with a more comical beast than Tiglath, the Utter Brute.
“I called him Tiglath because he resembled a lathy pig. Later on I called him Pileser on account of his shouk; but my coachman, a strong, masterless man, called him i haranizada chory shaitan ke bap’ and ‘oont ki beta.’ He certainly was a powerful horse, being full fifteen-two at the withers, with a girth of a waler, and at first the docility of an Arab. There was something wrong with his feet — permanently — but he was a considerate beast, and never had more than one leg in hospital at a time. The other three were still movable, and Tiglath never grudged them in my service.”
At last Tiglath was shot, but, odd though it sounds, even his death had a note of comedy.
“A Fallen Idol” is a light and laughing little sketch of a man named Trivey, supposed for a time to be the club Munchausen, upon the strength of a wonderful yarn he told of conquering an elephant:
“‘When I was at Anungarachar- lupillay in Madras/ said Trivey quietly, ‘ there was a rogue elephant cutting about the district/ He told us that he, in the company of another man, had found the rogue asleep, but just as they got up to the brute’s head it woke up with a scream. Then Trivey, who was careful to explain that he was a 4 bit powerful about the arms,’ caught hold of its ears as it rose, and hung there, kicking the animal in the eyes, which so bewildered it that it stayed screaming and frightened until Trivey’s ally shot it behind the shoulder, and the villagers ran in and hamstrung it.”
This ranked as the prize falsehood of the club until one Crewe had to go to the very same district in Madras. Upon his return he convinced them all that Trivey’s feat was absolutely true in every detail!
“Sleipner,” late “ Thurinda,” is an eerie story of the supernatural borderland with a serious, rather sad, interest that recalls “The Phantom Rickshaw,” but in “ Sleipner” the apparition is that of a horse.
A man named J ale brings a string of horses to a meeting and is thrown and killed. He leaves his horse Thurinda to Hordene. “ She’s as easy as a Pullman car and about twice as fast,” he was wont to say in moments of confidence to his intimates. “ For all her bulk, she’s as handy as a polo-pony; a child might ride her, and when she’s at the post she’s as cute — she’s as cute as the bally starter himself.” Many times had Hordene said this, till at last one unsympathetic friend answered with : “ When a man bukhs too much about his wife or
his horse, it’s a sure sign he’s trying to make himself like ‘em.”
But it was not such easy running for Thurinda’s new owner. The dead man, Jale, from beyond the tomb, bewitched his horse, thereby maddening Hordene. Then he cursed the dead man Jale for his ridiculous interference with a free gift. “If it was given — it was given,” said Hordene, “ and he has no right to come messing about after it.”
Hordene sold her, and the third owner shot her! Then, after hearing the full story of the mare, he said:
“I’ll lay that ghost.” He leaned out into the night and shouted: “ Jale! Jale! Jale! Wherever you are.” - There was a pause and then up the compound- drive came the clatter of a horse’s feet. The red-haired subaltern blanched under his freckles to the colour of glycerine soap. “ Thurinda’s dead,” he muttered, “ and — and all bets are off. Go back to your grave again.”
“New Brooms “ is the last of the seven pieces that we have roughly classified as the doings of some English in India, and is a somewhat awesome story of that master of contagia and bacteria, the sanitary engineer, and of plague in India caused through the indolent uncleanli- ness of the typical native who is here called Ram Buksh. Into the life of this man the Englishman enters with his usual ideas about washing men, and streets, about clean water, sanitation, and so on, fighting even against the ideas of the Government of India in order to get things done decently and in order. One lays
down11 New Brooms’’ with a little shudder, it is true (for it has graphic pictures of how plague and pollution are caused), but with an enhanced respect for the power of the sanitary engineer.
In the little group of stories and sketches dealing more or less with life in London I would mention “ Letters on Leave” for especial attention. These letters to an officer in the Indian Army are packed with shrewd hits at English life — you will remember 4 4 One View of the Question, in Life’s Handicap “; they are followed by sketches of the author’s early literary life here with, ever and anon, the longing for his Indian home as in “On Exhibition “ :
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 982