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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"Plain Tales from the Hills"


She will never tell, because she dare not; but, unless something
happens to prevent her, I am afraid that the seal-cutter will die of
cholera--the white arsenic kind--about the middle of May. And thus
I shall have to be privy to a murder in the House of Suddhoo.

HIS WEDDED WIFE.

Cry "Murder!" in the market-place, and each
Will turn upon his neighbor anxious eyes
That ask:--"Art thou the man?" We hunted Cain,
Some centuries ago, across the world,
That bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain
To-day.
Vibart's Moralities.

Shakespeare says something about worms, or it may be giants or
beetles, turning if you tread on them too severely. The safest plan
is never to tread on a worm--not even on the last new subaltern from
Home, with his buttons hardly out of their tissue paper, and the red
of sappy English beef in his cheeks. This is the story of the worm
that turned. For the sake of brevity, we will call Henry Augustus
Ramsay Faizanne, "The Worm," although he really was an exceedingly
pretty boy, without a hair on his face, and with a waist like a
girl's when he came out to the Second "Shikarris" and was made
unhappy in several ways.


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