E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Graeme Mackreth, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/a00kiplbaftfunnelrich ABAFT THE FUNNEL By RUDYARD KIPLING ABAFT THE FUNNEL by RUDYARD KIPLING "Men in pajamas sitting abaft the funnel and swapping lies of the purple seas" New York B. W. Dodge & Company 1909 Copyright, 1909, by B. W. Dodge & Company PREFACE The measure of a man's popularity is not always--or indeed seldom--the measure of his intrinsic worth. So, when the earlier work of any writer is gathered together in more enduring form, catering to the enthusiasm of his readers in his maturer years, there is always a suspicion that the venture is purely a commercial one, without literary justification. Fortunately these stories of Mr. Kipling's form their own best excuse for this, their first appearance together in book form. Not merely because in them may be traced the origin of that style and subject matter that later made their author famous; but because the stories are in themselves worth while--worth writing, worth reading. "The Likes o' Us" is as true to the type as any of the immortal Mulvaney stories; the beginning of "New Brooms" is as succinctly fine as any prose Mr. Kipling ever wrote; for searching out and presenting such splendid pieces of fiction as "Sleipner, late Thurinda," and "A Little More Beef" to a public larger than their original one in India, no apology is necessary. A.F. CONTENTS PAGE Erastasius of the Whanghoa 1 Her Little Responsibility 12 A Menagerie Aboard 20 A Smoke of Manila 26 The Red Lamp 33 The Shadow of His Hand 41 A Little More Beef 49 The History of a Fall 58 Griffiths the Safe Man 66 It 77 The Fallen Idol 85 New Brooms 91 Tiglath Pileser 99 The Like o' Us 109 His Brother's Keeper 121 "Sleipner," Late "Thurinda" 141 A Supplementary Chapter 161 Chautauquaed 180 The Bow Flume Cable Car 204 In Partibus 213 Letters on Leave 218