Page:Under the Deodars - Kipling (1890).djvu/28

 sheet of water with the railway embankment and the snakes sticking out, and, in the summer, green flies and green squash. The people would die of fear if you shook a dogwhip at 'em. But they know you're forbidden to do that, so they conspire to make your life a burden to you. My District's worked by some man at Darjiling, on the strength of a native pleader's false reports. Oh, its a heavenly place!"

Otis Yeere laughed bitterly.

"There's not the least necessity that you should stay in it. Why do you?"

"Because I must. How'm I to get out of it?"

"How! In a hundred and fifty ways. If there weren't so many people on the road, I'd like to box your ears. Ask, my dear Sir, ask! Look! There is young Hexarly with six years' service and half your talents. He asked for what he wanted and he got it. See, down by the Convent! There's McArthurson who has come to his present position by asking—sheer, down-right asking—after he had pushed himself out of the rank-and-file. One man is as good as another in your service—believe me. I've seen Simla for more seasons than I care to think about. Do you suppose men are chosen for appointments because of their special fitness beforehand? You have all passed a high test—what do you call it?—in the beginning, and excepting the three or four who have gone altogether to the bad, you can all work. Asking does the rest. Call it cheek, call it insolence, call it anything you like, but ask! Men argue—yes, I know what men say- that a man, by the mere audacity of his request, must have some good in him. A weak man doesn't say: 'Give me this and that'. He whines: 'Why haven't I been given this and that?' If you were in the Army I should say learn to spin plates or play a tambourine with your toes. As it is—ask! You belong to a Service that ought to be able to command the Channel fleet, or set a leg at twenty minutes' notice, and yet you hesitate over asking to escape from a squashy green district where you admit you are not