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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"Plain Tales from the Hills"


So the Bill was amended in that clause; and the Legal Member was
filled with an uneasy suspicion that Native Members represent very
little except the Orders they carry on their bosoms. But he put the
thought from him as illiberal. He was a most Liberal Man.
After a time the news spread through the bazars that Tods had got
the Bill recast in the tenure clause, and if Tods' Mamma had not
interfered, Tods would have made himself sick on the baskets of
fruit and pistachio nuts and Cabuli grapes and almonds that crowded
the verandah. Till he went Home, Tods ranked some few degrees
before the Viceroy in popular estimation. But for the little life
of him Tods could not understand why.
In the Legal Member's private-paper-box still lies the rough draft
of the Sub-Montane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment; and, opposite
the twenty-second clause, pencilled in blue chalk, and signed by the
Legal Member, are the words "Tods' Amendment."

IN THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH.

"Stopped in the straight when the race was his own!
Look at him cutting it--cur to the bone!"
"Ask ere the youngster be rated and chidden,
What did he carry and how was he ridden?
Maybe they used him too much at the start;
Maybe Fate's weight-cloths are breaking his heart.


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