Life's Handicap: Being Stories of Mine Own PeopleKipling, Rudyard
History
Life's Handicap: Being Stories of Mine Own People
Kipling, Rudyard
India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947 -- Fiction; India -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, English
‘But if his brethren come, they will surely fight with each other till
they die; or else the one will always give information concerning the
other. Shall he be of thy Army, O King? Choose.’
The King bowed his head, and I said, ‘Come forth, Namgay Doola, and
command the King’s Army. Thy name shall no more be Namgay in the mouths
of men, but Patsay Doola, for as thou hast said, I know.’
Then Namgay Doola, new christened Patsay Doola, son of Timlay Doola,
which is Tim Doolan gone very wrong indeed, clasped the King’s feet,
cuffed the Standing Army, and hurried in an agony of contrition from
temple to temple, making offerings for the sin of cattle-maiming.
And the King was so pleased with my perspicacity, that he offered to
sell me a village for twenty pounds sterling. But I buy no villages in
the Himalayas so long as one red head flares between the tail of the
heaven-climbing glacier and the dark birch-forest.
I know that breed.
BURTRAN AND BIMI
The orang-outang in the big iron cage lashed to the sheep-pen began the
discussion. The night was stiflingly hot, and as I and Hans Breitmann,
the big-beamed German, passed him, dragging our bedding to the fore-peak
of the steamer, he roused himself and chattered obscenely. He had been
caught somewhere in the Malayan Archipelago, and was going to England
to be exhibited at a shilling a head. For four days he had struggled,
yelled, and wrenched at the heavy bars of his prison without ceasing,
and had nearly slain a lascar, incautious enough to come within reach of
the great hairy paw.
‘It would be well for you, mine friend, if you was a liddle seasick,’
said Hans Breitmann, pausing by the cage.’ You haf too much Ego in your
Cosmos.’
The orang-outang’s arm slid out negligently from between the bars. No
one would have believed that it would make a sudden snakelike rush at
the German’s breast. The thin silk of the sleeping-suit tore out; Hans
stepped back unconcernedly to pluck a banana from a bunch hanging close
to one of the boats.
‘Too much Ego,’ said he, peeling the fruit and offering it to the caged
devil, who was rending the silk to tatters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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