Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/68

54 April opened with punkahs, coolies, and prickly-heat,—

Pagett was dear to mosquitoes, sandflies found him a treat.

He grew speckled and lumpy—hammered, I grieve to say,

Aryan brothers who fanned him, in an illiberal way.

May set in with a dust-storm,—Pagett went down with the sun.

All the delights of the season tickled him one by one.

Imprimis—ten days' "liver"—due to his drinking beer;

Later, a dose of fever—slight, but he called it severe.

Dysent'ry touched him in June, after the Chota Bursat—

Lowered his portly person—made him yearn to depart.

He didn't call me a "Brahmin," or "bloated," or "overpaid,"

But seemed to think it a wonder that any one ever stayed.