Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (865 page)

“You!” This with amazement from the Infant, for Abanazar resembled nothing so much as a fluffy Persian cat.

“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