The Collected Works | Page 5

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THE STORY OF URIAH
"Now there were two men in one city;
the one rich and the other
poor."
Jack Barrett went to Quetta
Because they told him to.
He left his wife at Simla
On three-fourths his monthly screw:
Jack Barrett died at Quetta
Ere the next month's pay he drew.
Jack Barrett went to Quetta.
He didn't understand
The reason of his transfer
From the pleasant mountain-land:
The season was September,
And it killed him out of hand.
Jack Barrett went to Quetta,
And there gave up the ghost,
Attempting two men's duty
In that very healthy post;
And Mrs. Barrett mourned for him

Five lively months at most.
Jack Barrett's bones at Quetta
Enjoy profound repose;
But I shouldn't be astonished
If now his spirit knows
The reason of his transfer
From the Himalayan snows.
And, when the Last Great Bugle Call
Adown the Hurnal throbs,
When the last grim joke is entered
In the big black Book of Jobs,
And Quetta graveyards give again
Their victims to the air,
I shouldn't like to be the man
Who sent Jack Barrett there.
THE POST THAT FITTED
Though tangled and twisted the course of true love
This ditty explains,
No tangle's so tangled it cannot improve
If the Lover has brains.
Ere the steamer bore him Eastward, Sleary was engaged to marry An
attractive girl at Tunbridge, whom he called "my little Carrie."
Sleary's pay was very modest; Sleary was the other way.
Who can
cook a two-plate dinner on eight poor rupees a day?
Long he pondered o'er the question in his scantly furnished quarters--
Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge Boffkin's daughters.
Certainly an impecunious Subaltern was not a catch,
But the Boffkins

knew that Minnie mightn't make another match.
So they recognised the business and, to feed and clothe the bride, Got
him made a Something Something somewhere on the Bombay side.
Anyhow, the billet carried pay enough for him to marry--
As the
artless Sleary put it:--"Just the thing for me and Carrie."
Did he, therefore, jilt Miss Boffkin--impulse of a baser mind? No! He
started epileptic fits of an appalling kind.
[Of his modus operandi only this much I could gather:--
"Pears's
shaving sticks will give you little taste and lots of lather."]
Frequently in public places his affliction used to smite
Sleary with
distressing vigour--always in the Boffkins' sight.
Ere a week was over Minnie weepingly returned his ring,
Told him
his "unhappy weakness" stopped all thought of marrying.
Sleary bore the information with a chastened holy joy,--
Epileptic fits
don't matter in Political employ,--
Wired three short words to
Carrie--took his ticket, packed his kit-- Bade farewell to Minnie
Boffkin in one last, long, lingering fit.
Four weeks later, Carrie Sleary read--and laughed until she wept-- Mrs.
Boffkin's warning letter on the "wretched epilept." . . .
Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boffkin sits Waiting for
the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits.
PUBLIC WASTE
Walpole talks of "a man and his price."
List to a ditty queer--
The sale of a Deputy-Acting-ViceResident
-Engineer,
Bought like a bullock, hoof and hide,
By the Little Tin

Gods on the Mountain Side.
By the Laws of the Family Circle 'tis written in letters of brass That
only a Colonel from Chatham can manage the Railways of State,
Because of the gold on his breeks, and the subjects wherein he must
pass; Because in all matters that deal not with Railways his knowledge
is great.
Now Exeter Battleby Tring had laboured from boyhood to eld
On the
Lines of the East and the West, and eke of the North and South; Many
Lines had he built and surveyed--important the posts which he held;
And the Lords of the Iron Horse were dumb when he opened his
mouth.
Black as the raven his garb, and his heresies jettier still-- Hinting that
Railways required lifetimes of study and knowledge-- Never clanked
sword by his side--Vauban he knew not nor drill-- Nor was his name on
the list of the men who had passed through the "College."
Wherefore the Little Tin Gods harried their little tin souls, Seeing he
came not from Chatham, jingled no spurs at his heels, Knowing that,
nevertheless, was he first on the Government rolls For the billet of
"Railway Instructor to Little Tin Gods on Wheels."
Letters not seldom they wrote him, "having the honour to state," It
would be better for all men if he were laid on the shelf. Much would
accrue to his bank-book, an he consented to wait Until the Little Tin
Gods built him a berth for himself,
"Special, well paid, and exempt from the Law of the Fifty and Five,
Even to Ninety and Nine"--these were the terms of the pact: Thus did
the Little Tin Gods (long may Their Highnesses thrive!) Silence his
mouth with rupees, keeping their Circle intact;
Appointing a Colonel from Chatham who managed