Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (461 page)

“‘Pledged the State’s ticker, eh?” said McTurk, with a nod to me.

“About that; but the embarrassin’ part was that it was all so thunderin’ convenient, so well reasoned, don’t you know? Came in as pat as if he’d had access to all sorts of information — which he couldn’t, of course.”

“Pooh!” said Tertius, “I back Stalky against the Foreign Office any day.”

“He’d done pretty nearly everything he could think of, except strikin’ coins in his own image and superscription, all under cover of buildin’ this infernal road and bein’ blocked by the snow. His report was simply amazin’. Von Lennaert tore his hair over it at first, and then he gasped, ‘Who the dooce is this unknown Warren Hastings? He must be slain. He must be slain officially! The Viceroy’ll never stand it. It’s unheard of. He must be slain by his Excellency in person. Order him up here and pitch in a stinger.’ Well, I sent him no end of an official stinger, and I pitched in an unofficial telegram at the same time.”

“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.

JUST SO STORIES FOR LITTLE CHILDREN

This famous story collection was first published in 1902 and are among Kipling’s best known work.  The tales are known as
pourquoi
stories, which are fantastic accounts of how various phenomena came about. The
Just So Stories
have a typical theme of a particular animal being modified from an original form to its current form by the acts of man, or some magical being. For example, the Whale has a tiny throat from a swallowed mariner who tied a raft in there to block the whale from swallowing others. The Camel has a hump given to him by a djinn as punishment for the camel refusing to work (the hump allows the camel to work longer between eating). The Leopard has spots painted on him by an Ethiopian (after the Ethiopian painted himself black). The Kangaroo gets its powerful hind legs, long tail, and hopping gait after being chased all day by a dingo, who was sent after the Kangaroo by a minor god whom the Kangaroo had asked to make him different from all other animals.

CONTENTS

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

How the Whale Got His Throat

HOW THE WHALE GOT HIS THROAT

N
the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth — so! Till at last there was only one small fish left in all the sea, and he was a small ‘Stute Fish, and he swam a little behind the Whale’s right ear, so as to be out of harm’s way. Then the Whale stood up on his tail and said, ‘I’m hungry.’ And the small ‘Stute Fish said in a small ‘stute voice, ‘Noble and generous Cetacean, have you ever tasted Man?’