Actions and Reactions | Page 3

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ACTIONS AND REACTIONS BY RUDYARD KIPLING

CONTENTS
An Habitation Enforced The Recall Garm--a Hostage The Power of the
Dog The Mother Hive The Bees and the Flies With the Night Mail The
Four Angels A Deal in Cotton The New Knighthood The Puzzler The
Puzzler Little Foxes Gallio's Song The House Surgeon The Rabbi's
Song
ACTIONS AND REACTIONS
AN HABITATION ENFORCED
My friend, if cause doth wrest thee, Ere folly hath much oppressed thee,
Far from acquaintance kest thee Where country may digest thee . . .
Thank God that so hath blessed thee, And sit down, Robin, and rest
thee. THOMAS TUSSER.
It came without warning, at the very hour his hand was outstretched to
crumple the Holz and Gunsberg Combine. The New York doctors
called it overwork, and he lay in a darkened room, one ankle crossed
above the other, tongue pressed into palate, wondering whether the next
brain-surge of prickly fires would drive his soul from all anchorages.
At last they gave judgment. With care he might in two years return to
the arena, but for the present he must go across the water and do no
work whatever. He accepted the terms. It was capitulation; but the
Combine that had shivered beneath his knife gave him all the honours
of war: Gunsberg himself, full of condolences, came to the steamer and
filled the Chapins' suite of cabins with overwhelming flower-works.
"Smilax," said George Chapin when he saw them. "Fitz is right. I'm
dead; only I don't see why he left out the 'In Memoriam' on the
ribbons!"
"Nonsense!" his wife answered, and poured him his tincture. "You'll be
back before you can think."

He looked at himself in the mirror, surprised that his face had not been
branded by the hells of the past three months. The noise of the decks
worried him, and he lay down, his tongue only a little pressed against
his palate.
An hour later he said: "Sophie, I feel sorry about taking you away from
everything like this. I--I suppose we're the two loneliest people on
God's earth to-night."
Said Sophie his wife, and kissed him: "Isn't it something to you that
we're going together?"
They drifted about Europe for months--sometimes alone, sometimes
with chance met gipsies of their own land. From the North Cape to the
Blue Grotto at Capri they wandered, because the next steamer headed
that way, or because some one had set them on the road. The doctors
had warned Sophie that Chapin was not to take interest even in other
men's interests; but a familiar sensation at the back of the neck after
one hour's keen talk with a Nauheimed railway magnate saved her any
trouble. He nearly wept.
"And I'm over thirty," he cried. "With all I meant to do!"
"Let's call it a honeymoon," said Sophie. "D' you know, in all