From Mine Own People by Rudyard Kipling
page 18 of 1159 (01%)
page 18 of 1159 (01%)
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Even to Ninety and Nine"--these were the terms of the pact:
Thus did the Little Tin Gods (long may Their Highnesses thrive!) Silence his mouth with rupees, keeping their Circle intact; Appointing a Colonel from Chatham who managed the Bhamo State Line (The which was one mile and one furlong--a guaranteed twenty-inch gauge), So Exeter Battleby Tring consented his claims to resign, And died, on four thousand a month, in the ninetieth year of his age! DELILAH We have another viceroy now,--those days are dead and done Of Delilah Aberyswith and depraved Ulysses Gunne. Delilah Aberyswith was a lady--not too young-- With a perfect taste in dresses and a badly-bitted tongue, With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst for praise, And a little house in Simla in the Prehistoric Days. By reason of her marriage to a gentleman in power, Delilah was acquainted with the gossip of the hour; And many little secrets, of the half-official kind, Were whispered to Delilah, and she bore them all in mind. She patronized extensively a man, Ulysses Gunne, Whose mode of earning money was a low and shameful one. He wrote for certain papers, which, as everybody knows, Is worse than serving in a shop or scaring off the crows. |
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