India -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, English
"To reshume. Fwhat I've said jist shows the use av three-year-olds. Wud
fifty seasoned sodgers have taken Lungtungpen in the dhark that way? No!
They'd know the risk av fever and chill. Let alone the shootin'. Two
hundher' might have done ut. But the three-year-olds know little an' care
less; an' where there's no fear, there's no danger. Catch thim young, feed
thim high, an' by the honor av that great, little man Bobs, behind a good
orficer 'tisn't only dacoits they'd smash wid their clo'es off--'tis
Con-ti-nental Ar-r-r-mies! They tuk Lungtungpen nakid; an' they'd take St.
Pethersburg in their dhrawers! Begad, they would that!
"Here's your pipe, sorr. Shmoke her tinderly wid honey-dew, afther letting
the reek av the Canteen plug die away. But 'tis no good, thanks to you all
the same, fillin' my pouch wid your chopped hay. Canteen baccy's like the
Army. It shpoils a man's taste for moilder things."
So saying, Mulvaney took up his butterfly-net, and returned to barracks.
THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW
May no ill dreams disturb my rest,
Nor Powers of Darkness me molest.
--Evening Hymn.
One of the few advantages that India has over England is a great
Knowability. After five years' service a man is directly or indirectly
acquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all
the Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen
hundred other people of the non-official caste, in ten years his knowledge
should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows something
about, every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel anywhere and
everywhere without paying hotel-bills.
Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even within my
memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but none the less to-day, if you
belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a Bear nor a Black Sheep, all
houses are open to you, and our small world is very, very kind and
helpful.
Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaon some fifteen years ago.
He meant to stay two nights, but was knocked down by rheumatic fever, and
for six weeks disorganized Polder's establishment, stopped Polder's work,
and nearly died in Polder's bedroom. Polder behaves as though he had been
placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, and yearly sends the little
Ricketts a box of presents and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men
who do not take the trouble to conceal from you their opinion that you are
an incompetent ass, and the women who blacken your character and
misunderstand your wife's amusements, will work themselves to the bone in
your behalf if you fall sick or into serious trouble,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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