Page:Quartette - Kipling (1885).djvu/48



Lucretia Sempavee Riddens McWhone Was loveliest of the Daughters of the Hills, And therefore made an idol of by those Who should have been at school, but drew instead Rupees two hundred, ten, and some odd pice For serving an ungrateful Government. And L. S. R. McW. enjoyed Herself exceedingly, and made to fly The pay of Angus, who was fat and red, And, at some early period of his life, Had been her husband. Angus didn't care, And L. S. R. McW. drove on. She had a Skeleton. Who hasn't? Two In fact. The one she kept beneath her stays And dressed with clothes from Europe. T'other one She generally hid inside her mouth, Because it wasn't hers, except by right Of purchase—gold paid down for pearls and gold. Two were the molars of a Communist Young lady, pistolled on the barricades; The canines came from some grim Plevna fosse; And one bicuspid from the Schipka Pass; The rest from Javanese rhinoceri; But all were lovely, and had cost much gold, And had a lot of little pegs and plates And springs and wires. And she loved them much. And no one knew of it or only guessed; And thus our naughty little world goes round. He was Macacus Rhesus, Sterndale says— I call him Bandar,—and at half past six One summer morning through the open door He ambled, searching for an early meal, His Simian chota házri. L. S. R. (I really can't repeat her name again) Was sleeping. Angus was at Bogglybad, And Something Else was in a tooth glass.—This Macacus Rhesus bolted with and chewed