Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1299 page)

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 “ :

“And I thought of smooth-cut lawns in the gloaming, and tables spread under mighty trees, and men and women, all intimately acquainted with each other, strolling about in the lightest of raiment, and the old dowagers criticising the badminton, and the young men in riding- boots making rude remarks about the claret-cup, and the host circulating through the mob and saying: ‘ Hah, Piggy or Bobby or Flatnose, as the nickname might be, ‘have another peg,’ and the hostess soothing the bashful youngsters and talking khitmatgars with the Judge’s wife, and the last new bride hanging on her husband’s arm and saying : 1 Isn’t it almost time to go home, Dicky, dear? ‘ and the little fat owls chuckling in the bougainvilleas, and the horses stamping and squealing in the carriage-drive ...”

“My Great and Only” is a humorous account of how a music hall song was produced, and the reception it got in the hall of its period — the early nineties. But the two pieces that bring “Abaft the Funnel” to an end — one a story and the other a fantasy — are so good that they should not be forgotten upon any account. The story is entitled “The New Dispensation, Part I. and Part II.,” but it might be called the “ Glorification of Kadir Baksh, the Khitmatgar,” for that is what Part I. certainly amounts to. In Part II. we find that the writer has secured in London (from the Docks) a native Tamil servant named Rama- sawmy, who, when cleaned and clothed, was a faithful being enough, but had a vendetta upon his mind. Briefly, he was only awaiting the arrival of a certain ship and man, to fight to the death, or commit manslaughter, and the man arrived. The story ends in bloodshed.

The fantasy, entitled “The Last of the Stories,” is utterly unlike anything I have ever met of Kipling’s. It is in the first person, and narrates that the author, in a dream, was taken by the Devil of Discontent to a literary limbo, the Limbo of Lost Endeavour, where are all the souls of characters drawn in tales, novels, and articles. The author meets his own famous characters : Captain Gadsby and Minnie, Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Mallowe, and very many others :

“One after another they filed by — Trewinnard, the pet of his Department; Otis Yeere, lean and lanthorn-jawed; Crook O’Neil and Bobby Wick arm-inarm; Janki Meah, the blind miner in the Jimahari coal-fields; Afzul Khan, the policeman; the murderous Pathan horse-dealer, Durga Dass; the bunnia, Boh Da Thone; the dacoit, Dana Da, weaver of false magic; the Leander of the Barhwi ford; Peg Barney, drunk as a coot; Mrs. Delville, the dowd; Dinah Shadd, large, red-cheeked, and resolute; Simmons, Slane, and Losson; Georgie Porgie and his Burmese helpmate; a shadow in a high collar, who was all that I had ever indicated of the Hawley Boy — the nameless men and women who had trod the Hill of Illusion and lived in the Tents of Kedar, and last, His Majesty the King.”

Towards the end of this strange dreamy fantasy — how our G. W. Steevens, who wrote similar brilliant matter in his “Monologues of the Dead,” would have revelled in this — there is a fine unforgettable touch. Rabelais speaks to the writer, touches him and starts :

“By the Great Bells of Notre Dame, you are in the flesh — the warm flesh! —

the flesh I quitted so long — ah, so long! And you fret and behave unseemly because of these shadows! Listen now! I, even I, would give my Three, Panurge, Gargantua and Pantagruel, for one little hour of the life that is in you. And I am the Master! . . . “

The Devil of Discontent is supposed to be the truth that lurks at the bottom of the ink-well and, when the weary writer has finished his story, poem, or essay, appears — only to sneer at whatever the effort was. Great literary names are here rattled off like drumtaps with consummate ease — Bret Harte, Mark Twain, ever - to - be - remembered Walter Besant, with many others — and a sound of light mocking laughter is heard throughout it all.

“Her Little Responsibility” — with the long sub-title, 4 4 And No Man May Answer for the Soul of His Brother” — is a slight sketch of an English ne’er-do-well encountered in America, a man “ falling down the ladder rung by rung.” It is a dark little picture of a Harrow boy’s degradation lit up, however, by obiter dicta upon the way of a man with a maid :

“I don’t think some men ought to be allowed to fall in love any more than they ought to be allowed to taste whiskey.”

“Never you make a woman swear oaths of eternal constancy. She’ll break every one of them as soon as her mind changes, and call you unjust for making her swear them.”

“You can tell nothing from a woman’s letter, though. If they want to hide anything, they just double the ‘ dears ‘ and ‘darlings.’ “

“A Menagerie Aboard,” “It,” “A Smoke of Manila,” and “A Little More Beef” are most amusing sketches, but “Griffiths, the Safe Man,” is the best thing in the way of droll exaggeration since Twain made us laugh at “The Jumping Frog of Calavaras County.”

Griffiths and the teller of the tale went to Japan together. But, first, here is Griffiths etched for us by his Tormentor : “ He (Griffiths) says : “ ‘ Safe bind is safe find.’ That, rather, is what he used to say. He has seen reason to alter his views. Everything about Griffiths is safe — entirely safe. His trunk is locked by two hermetical gun-metal double-end Chubbs; his bedding-roll opens to a letter padlock capable of two million combinations; his hat- box has a lever patent safety on it; and the grief of his life is that he cannot lock up the ribs of his umbrella safely. If you could get at his soul you would find it ready strapped up and labelled for heaven. That is Griffiths.”