Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/154

140 (Shall I write letters, answering H-nt-r—fawn

With R-p-n on the Yorkshire grocers? Ugh!)

They have their Reputations. Look to one—

I work with him—the smallest of them all,

White-haired, red-faced, who sat the plunging horse

Out in the garden. He's your right-hand man,

And dreams of tilting W-ls-y from the throne,

But while he dreams gives work he cannot buy;

He has his Reputation—wants the Lords

By way of Frontier Roads. Meantime, I think,

He values very much the hand that falls

Upon his shoulder at the Council table—

Hates cats and knows his business: which is yours.

Your business! Twice a hundred million souls.

Your business! I could tell you what I did

Some nights of Eighty-Five, at Simla, worth

A Kingdom's ransom. When a big ship drives

God knows to what new reef, the man at the wheel

Prays with the passengers. They lose their lives.

Or rescued go their way; but he's no man

To take his trick at the wheel again—that's worse

Than drowning. Well, a galled Mashobra mule

(You'll see Mashobra) passed me on the Mall,

And I was—some fool's wife had ducked and bowed