Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/42

28 It would be better for all men if he were laid on the shelf:

Much would accrue to his bank-book and he consented to wait

Until the Little Tin Gods built him a berth for himself.

"Special, well paid, and exempt from the Law of the Fifty and Five,

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!