Wesleyan ministers .. . lie behind me,' he noted; the family tradition can be heard in such secular sermons as 'If' (1910) and the elegiac hymn 'Recessional' (1897). The second influence came from what seems an antithetical secular quarter: the songs of the music hall. As a teenager in London, Kipling had enjoyed music hall entertainments, which were to reach their peak of popularity in the 1890s. Like Tennyson, Kipling knew how to make poems that call to be set to music, verses such as 'Mandalay' (1890) or 'Gentlemen-Rankers' (1892), with its memorable refrain: 'We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, / Baa! Baa! Baa!' Much of Kipling's poetry is best appreciated with the melodies and ambience of the music hall in mind.
In recent years Kipling's stories have received more attention than his poems. By portraying the British community in India and its relationship with the people it ruled, Kipling created a rich and various fictional world that reflects on England's imperialism as lived by the officers of the empire in all their peculiar social relationships. 'The Man Who Would Be King' (1888) presents an intriguing approach to the topic. The narrator, a newspaper editor, tells us of his dealings with a couple of 'Loafers.' Peachey Carnehan and Daniel Dravot have no official positions in India but are quick to exploit any opportunities their European status may afford them; this pair of rogues heads out to the mountainous region of Kafiristan, intent on establishing their own dynasty. An action- packed tale of adventure in faraway places with strange-sounding names, the story also invites us to think critically about the general project of empire?about the assumptions it holds, the methods it employs, and the human cost of its endeavors.
After leaving India, Kipling gradually turned to English subjects in his fiction, but the cataclysm of World War I did much to diminish his output. As chair of the Imperial War Graves Commission, he played a difficult and important public role, responsible for (among other things) choosing the words to be inscribed on countless monuments and memorials across the globe. Kipling's task was all the more poignant because the body of his only son, who had died in the battle of Loos (1915), was never found. A deeply melancholy autobiography, Something of Myself, was published in 1937, the year after Kipling's death.
The Man Who Would Be King1
'Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy.'2
The law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under circumstances
1. Kipling based his story on the true-life exploits from the masons' guild in medieval Britain. By Vicof an American adventurer, Josiah Harlan, who torian times it had grown to a prominent national awarded himself the title of prince after occupying organization, whose members were bound to help a region in the Hindu Kush in the late 1830s. each other in times of distress. Kipling was a mem2. Meant to suggest the principles of Free-ber. masonry, a secret fraternal society that developed
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THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING / 1795
which prevented either of us finding out whether the other was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King and was promised the reversion of' a Kingdom? army, law-courts, revenue and policy all complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear that my King is dead, and if I want a crown I must go and hunt it for myself.
The beginning of everything was in a railway train upon the road to Mhow from Ajmir.4 There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitated traveling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-class, but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions in the Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty, or Loafer,5 which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not patronize refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and buy sweets from the native sweetmeat- sellers, and drink the roadside water. That is why in the hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon.
My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached Nasirabad, when a huge gentleman in shirt- sleeves entered, and, following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated taste for whiskey. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of out- of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days' food. 'If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than the crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy millions of revenue the land would be paying?it's seven hundred millions,' said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed to agree with him. We talked politics?the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from the underside where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off6?and we talked postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram back from the next station to Ajmir, which is the turning-off place from the Bombay to the Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend had no money beyond eight annas which he wanted7 for dinner, and I had no money at all, owing to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was going into a wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the Treasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable to help him in any way.
'We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick,'8 said my friend, 'but that'd mean inquiries for you and for me, and I've got my hands full these days. Did you say you are traveling back along this line within any days?'
'Within ten,' I said.
'Can't you make it eight?' said he. 'Mine is rather urgent business.'
'I can send your telegram within ten days if that will serve you,' I said.
'I couldn't trust the wire to fetch him now I think of it. It's this way. He leaves Delhi on the 23d for Bombay. That means he'll be running through Ajmir about the night of the 23d.'
3. Right to inherit. 6. I.e., the unfinished side of a wall. 4. These, and the other places mentioned at the 7. Needed. 'Annas': there are sixteen annas in a beginning of the story, are in northern India. rupee, the basic monetary unit of India. 5. A European in India with no official attachment 8. On credit. or position.
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179 6 / RUDYARD KIPLING
'But I'm going into the Indian Desert,' I explained.
'Well and good,' said he. 'You'll be changing at Marwar Junction to get into Jodhpore territory?you must do that?and he'll be coming through Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the Bombay Mail. Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time? 'Twon't be inconveniencing you because I know that there's precious few pickings to be got out of these Central India States?even though you pretend to be correspondent of the Backwoodsman.'9
