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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"From Mine Own People"


Capt. M. 'Fraid you won't be entered in the Stud Book correctly unless you go
Home? Take six months, then, and come out in October. If I could slay off a
brother or two, I s'pose I should be a Marquis of sorts. Any fool can be that;
but it needs men, Gaddy--men like you--to lead flanking squadrons properly.
Don't you delude yourself into the belief that you're going Home to take your
place and prance about among pink-nosed Kabuli dowagers. You aren't built that
way. I know better.
Capt. G. A man has a right to live his life as happily as he can. You aren't
married.
Capt. M. No--praise be to Providence and the one or two women who have had the
good sense to jawab me.
Capt. G. Then you don't know what it is to go into your own room and see your
wife's head on the pillow, and when everything else is safe and the house shut
up for the night, to wonder whether the roof-beams won't give and kill her.
Capt. M. (Aside.) Revelations first and second! (Aloud.) So-o! I knew a man who
got squiffy at our Mess once and confided to me that he never helped his wife
on to her horse without praying that she'd break her neck before she came back.
All husbands aren't alike, you see.
Capt. G. What on earth has that to do with my case? The man must ha' been mad,
or his wife as bad as they make 'em.


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