Selected Stories by Rudyard Kipling

–
    â€˜If a youth would be distinguished in his art, art, art,
He must keep the girls away from his heart, heart, heart.’
    And Dicky, who fancied he had been through every trouble that a man is permitted to know, had to laugh and agree; with the last line of his balanced Bank-book jingling in his head day and night.
    But he had one more sorrow to digest before the end. There arrived a letter from the little wife – the natural sequence of the others if Dicky had only known it – and the burden of that letter was ‘gone with a handsomer man than you’. It was a rather curious production, without stops, something like this – ‘She was not going to wait for ever and the baby was dead and Dicky was only a boy and he would never set eyes on her again and why hadn’t he waved his handkerchief to her when he left Gravesend and God was her judge she was a wicked woman but Dicky was worse enjoying himself in India and this other man loved the ground she trod on and would Dicky ever forgive her for she would never forgive Dicky; and there was no address to write to.’
    Instead of thanking his stars that he was free, Dicky discovered exactly how an injured husband feels – again, not at all the knowledge to which a boy is entitled – for his mind went back to his wife as he remembered her in the thirty-shilling ‘suite’ in Montpelier Square, when the dawn of his last morning in England was breaking, and she was crying in the bed.Whereat he rolled about on his bed and bit his fingers. He never stopped to think whether, if he had met Mrs Hatt after those two years, he would have discovered that he and she had grown quite different and new persons. This, theoretically, he ought to have done. He spent the night after the English Mail came in rather severe pain.
    Next morning, Dicky Hatt felt disinclined to work. He argued that he had missed the pleasure of youth. He was tired, and he had tasted all the sorrow in life before three-and-twenty. His Honour was gone – that was the man; and now he, too, would go to the Devil – that was the boy in him. So he put his head down on the green oil-cloth tablecover, and wept before resigning his post, and all it offered.
    But the reward of his services came. He was given three days to reconsider himself, and the Head of the establishment, after some telegraphings, said that it was a most unusual step, but, in view of the ability that Mr Hatt had displayed at such and such a time, at such and such junctures, he was in a position to offer him an infinitely superior post – first on probation and later, in the natural course of things, on confirmation. ‘And how much does the post carry?’ said Dicky. ‘Six hundred and fifty rupees,’ said the Head slowly, expecting to see the young man sink with gratitude and joy.
    And it came then! The seven-hundred-rupee-passage, and enough to have saved the wife, and the little son, and to have allowed of assured and open marriage, came then. Dicky burst into a roar of laughter – laughter he could not check – nasty, jangling merriment that seemed as if it would go on for ever. When he had recovered himself he said, quite seriously, ‘I’m tired of work. I’m an old man now. It’s about time I retired. And I will.’
    â€˜The boy’s mad!’ said the Head.
    I think he was right; but Dicky Hatt never reappeared to settle the question.

The Daughter of the Regiment 1
    Jain ’Ardin’ was a Sarjint’s wife,
    A Sarjint’s wife wus she.
    She married of ’im in Orldershort
    An’ comed acrost the sea.
    (
Chorus
) ’Ave you never ’eard tell o’ Jain ‘Ardin’?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Jain