Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (598 page)

The softer methods lay one open to harder suspicions. Not long ago there was trouble among my shirts. I fancied buttons grew on neck-bands. Kadir Baksh and the durzie encouraged me in the belief. When the lead- coloured linen (they cannot wash, by the way, in this stronghold of infidels) shed its buttons 1 cast about for a means of renewal. There was a housemaid, and she was not very ugly, and I thought she could sew. I knew I could not. Therefore I strove to ingratiate myself with her, believing that a little interest, combined with a little capital, would fix those buttons more firmly than anything else. Subsequently, and after an interval — the buttons were dropping like autumn leaves — I kissed her. The buttons were attached at once. So, unluckily, was the housemaid, for I gathered that she looked forward to a lifetime of shirt- sewing in an official capacity, and my Revenue Board contemplated no additional establishment. My shirts are buttonsome, but my character is blasted. Oh, I wish I had Kadir Baksh!

This is only the first instalment of my troubles. The heathen in these parts do not understand me; so if you will allow I will come to you for sympathy from time to time. I am a child of calamity.

THE NEW DISPENSATION — II

WRITING of Kadir Baksh so wrought up my feelings that I could not rest till I had at least made an attempt to get a budli of some sort. The black man is essential to my comfort. I fancied I might in this city of barbarism catch a brokendown native strayed from his home and friends, who would be my friend and humble pardner — the sort of man, y’ know, who wTould sleep on a rug somewhere near my chambers (I have forty things to tell you about chambers, but they come later), and generally look after my things. In the intervals of labour I would talk to him in his own tongue, and we would go abroad together and explore London.

Do you know the Albert Docks? The British-India steamers go thence to the sunshine. They sometimes leave a lascar or two on the wharf, and, in fact, the general tone of the population thereabouts is brown and umber. I was in no case to be particular. Anything dusky would do for me, so long as it could talk Hindustani and sew buttons. I went to the docks and walked about generally among the railway lines and packing-cases, till I found a man selling tooth-combs, which is not a paying trade. He was ragged even to furriness, and very unwashed. But he came from the East. “What are you?” I said, and the look of the missionary that steals over me in moments of agitation deluded that tooth-comb man into answering, “Sar, I am native ki-li- sti-an,” but he put five more syllables into the last word.

There is no Christianity in the docks worth a tooth-comb. “I don’t want your beliefs. I want your jat” said I.

“I am Tamil,” said he, “and my name is Ramasawmy.”

It was an awful thing to lower oneself to the level of a Colonel of the Madras Army, and come down to being tended by a Rama- sawmy; but beggars cannot be choosers. I pointed out to him that the tooth-comb trade was a thing lightly to be dropped and taken up. He might injure his health by a washing, but he could not much hurt his prospects by coming along with me and trying his hand at bearer’s work. “Could he work?” Oh, yes, he didn’t mind work. He had been a servant in his time. Several servants, in fact.

“Could he wash himself?”

“Ye-es,” he might do that if I gave him a coat — a thick coat — afterwards, and especially took care of the tooth-combs, for they were his little all.

“Had he any character of any kind?’”

He thought for a minute and then said cheerfully: “Not a little dam.” Thereat I loved him, because a man who can speak the truth in minor matters may be trusted with important things, such as shirts.

We went home together till we struck a public bath, mercifully divided into three classes.

I got him to go into the third without much difficulty. When he came out he was in the way of cleanliness, and before he had time to expostulate I ran him into the second. Into the first he would not go till I had bought him a cheap ulster. He came out almost clean. That cost me three shillings altogether. The ulster was half a sovereign, and some other clothes were thirty shillings. Even these things could not hide from me that he looked an unusually villainous creature.

At the chambers the trouble began. The people in charge had race prejudices very strongly, and I had to point out that he was a civilised native Christian anxious to improve his English — it was fluent but unchastened — before they would give him some sort of a crib to lie down in. The housemaids called him the Camel. I introduced him as “the Tamil,” but they knew nothing of the ethnological subdivisions of India. They called him “that there beastly camel,” and I saw by the light in his eye he understood only too well.

Coming up the staircase he confided to me his views about the housemaids. He had lived at the docks too long. I said they weren’t. He said they were.

Then I showed him his duties, and he stood long in thought before the wardrobe. He evidently knew more than a little of the work, but whenever he came to a more than unusually dilapidated garment, he said: “No good for you, I take”; and he took. Then he put all the buttons on in the smoking of a pipe, and asked if there was anything else. I weakly said “No.” He said: “Good-bye,” and faded out of the house. The housekeeper of the chambers said he would never return.

But he did. At three in the morning home he came, and, naturally, possessing no latchkey, rang the bell. A policeman interfered, taking him for a burglar, and I was roused by the racket. I explained he was my servant, and the policeman said: “He do swear wonderful. ‘Tain’t any language. I know most of it, but some I’ve heard at Poplar.” Then I dragged the Camel upstairs. He was quite sober, and said he had been waiting at the docks. He must wait at the docks every time a British-India steamer came in. A lascar on the Bewah had stabbed him in the side three voyages ago, and he was waiting for his man. “Maybe he have died,” he said; “but if he have not died I catch him and cut his liver out.” Then he curled himself up on the mat, and slept as noiselessly as a child.

Next morning he inspected the humble breakfast bloater, which did not meet with his approval, for he instantly cut it in two pieces, fried it with butter, dusted it with pepper, and miraculously made of it a dish fit for a king. When the shock-headed boy came to take away the breakfast things, he counted every piece of crockery into his quaking hand and said: “If you break one dam thing I cut your dam liver out and fly him with butter.” Consequently, the housemaids said they were not going to clean the rooms as long as the Camel abode within. The Camel put his head out of the door and said they need not. He cleaned the rooms with his own hand and without noise, filled my pipe, made the bed, filled a pipe for himself, and sat down on the hearth-rug while I worked. When thought carried him away to the lascar of the Bewahj he would brandish the poker or take out his knife and whet it on the brickwork of the grate. It was a soothing sound to work to. At one o’clock he said that the Chyebassa would be in, and he must go. He demanded no money, saw that my tiffin was served, and fled. He returned at six o’clock singing a hymn. A lascar on the Chyebassa had told him that the Rewah was due in four days, and that his friend was not dead, but ripe for the knife. That night he got very drunk while I was out, and frightened the housemaids. All the chambers were in an uproar, but he crawled out of the skylight on the roof, and sat there till I came home.

In the dawn he was very penitent. He had misarranged his drink: the original intention being to sleep it off on my hearth-rug, but a housemaid had invited a friend up to the chambers to look at him, and the whispered comments and giggles made him angry. All next day he was restless but attentive. He urged me to fly to foreign shores, and take him with me. When other inducements failed, he reiterated that he was a “native ki-lis-ti-an,” and whetted his knife more furiously than ever. “You do not like this place. I do not like this place. Let us travel dam quick. Let us go on the sea. I cook blotters.” I told him this was impossible, but that if he stayed in my service we might later go abroad and enjoy ourselves.

But he would not rest and sleep on the rug and tend my shirts. On the morning of the Bewalis arrival he went away, and from his absence I fancied he had fallen into the hands of the law. But at midnight he came back, weak and husky.

“Have got him,” said he simply, and dragged his ulster down from the wall, wrapping it very tightly round him. “Now I go ‘way.”

He went into the bedroom, and began counting over the tale of the week’s wash, the boots, and so forth. “All right,” he called into the other room. Then came in to say good-bye, walking slowly.

“What’s your name, marshter?” said he. I told him. He bowed and descended the staircase painfully. I had not paid him a penny, and since he did not ask for it, counted on his returning at least for wages.

It was not till next morning that I found big dark drops on most of my clean shirts, and the housemaid complained of a trail of blood all down the staircase.

“The Camel” had received payment in full from other hands than mine.

THE LAST OF THE STORIES

Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than, that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion.

— Ecc. iii, 22
.

“KENCH with a long hand, lazy 1/t one,” I said to the punkah coolie.

“But I am tired,” said the coolie.

“Then go to Jehannum and get another man to pull,” I replied, which was rude and, when you come to think of it, unnecessary.

“Happy thought — go to Jehannum!” said a voice at my elbow. I turned and saw, seated on the edge of my bed, a large and luminous Devil. “I’m not afraid,” I said. “You’re an illusion bred by too much tobacco and not enough sleep. If I look at you steadily for a minute you will disappear. You are an ignis fatuus “Fatuous yourself!” answered the Devil blandly. “Do you mean to say you don’t know meV He shrivelled up to the size of a blob of sediment on the end of a pen, and I recognised my old friend the Devil of Discontent, who lived in the bottom of the inkpot, but emerges half a day after each story has been printed with a host of useless suggestions for its betterment.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” I said. “You’re not due till next week. Get back to your inkpot.”

“Hush!” said the Devil. “I have an idea.”

“Too late, as usual. I know your ways.”

“No. It’s a perfectly practicable one. Your swearing at the coolie suggested it. Did you ever hear of a man called Dante — charmin’ fellow, friend o’ mine?”

“‘Dante once prepared to paint a picture,’ I quoted.

“Yes. I inspired that notion — but never mind. Are you willing to play Dante to my Virgil? I can’t guarantee a nine-circle Inferno, any more than you can turn out a cantoed epic, but there’s absolutely no risk and — it will run to three columns at least.”

“But what sort of Hell do you own?” I said. “I fancied your operations were mostly above ground. You have no jurisdiction over the dead.

“Sainted Leopardi!” rapped the Devil, resuming natural size. “Is that all you know? I’m proprietor of one of the largest Hells in existence — the Limbo of Lost Endeavor, where the souls of all the Characters go.”

“Characters? What Characters?”

“All the characters that are drawn in books, painted in novels, sketched in magazine articles, thumb-nailed in feuilletons or in any way created by anybody and everybody who has had the fortune or misfortune to put his or her writings into print.”

“That sounds like a quotation from a prospectus. What do you herd Characters for? Aren’t there enough souls in the Universe?”

“Who possess souls and who do not? For aught you can prove, man may be soulless and the creatures he writes about immortal. Anyhow, about a hundred years after printing became an established nuisance, the loose Characters used to blow about interplanetary space in legions which interfered with traffic. So they were collected, and their charge became mine by right. Would you care to see them? Your own tire there.”

“That decides me. But is it hotter than Northern India?”

“On my Devildom, no. Put your arms round my neck and sit tight. I’m going to dive!”

He plunged from the bed headfirst into the floor. There was a smell of j ail-durrie and damp earth; and then fell the black darkness of night.

******

We stood before a door in a topless wall, from the further side of which came faintly the roar of infernal fires.

“But you said there was no danger!” I cried in an extremity of terror.

“No more there is,” said the Devil. “That’s only the Furnace of First Edition. Will you go on? No other human being has set foot here in the flesh. Let me bring the door to your notice. Pretty design, isn’t it? A joke of the Master’s.”

I shuddered, for the door was nothing more than a coffin, the backboard knocked out, set on end in the thickness of the wall. As I hesitated, the silence of space was cut by a sharp, shrill whistle, like that of a live shell, which rapidly grew louder and louder. “Get away from the door,” said the Devil of Discontent quickly. “Here’s a soul coming to its place.” I took refuge under the broad vans of the Devil’s wings. The whistle rose to an ear- splitting shriek and a naked soul flashed past me.