Book: The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition

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A very dirty hill-cooly woman, with goitre, owned it at Theog in
1884. It came into Simla from the north before Churton's
khitmatgar
bought it, and sold it, for three times its silver-value, to
Churton, who collected curiosities. The servant knew no more
what
he had bought than the master; but a man looking over Churton's
collection of curiosities--Churton was an Assistant Commissioner
by
the way--saw and held his tongue. He was an Englishman; but
knew
how to believe. Which shows that he was different from most
Englishmen. He knew that it was dangerous to have any share in
the
little box when working or dormant; for unsought Love is a terrible
gift.

Pack--"Grubby" Pack, as we used to call him--was, in every way, a
nasty little man who must have crawled into the Army by mistake.
He
was three inches taller than his sword, but not half so strong. And
the sword was a fifty-shilling, tailor-made one. Nobody liked him,
and, I suppose, it was his wizenedness and worthlessness that
made
him fall so hopelessly in love with Miss Hollis, who was good and
sweet, and five foot seven in her tennis shoes. He was not content
with falling in love quietly, but brought all the strength of his
miserable little nature into the business. If he had not been so
objectionable, one might have pitied him. He vapored, and fretted,
and fumed, and trotted up and down, and tried to make himself
pleasing in Miss Hollis's big, quiet, gray eyes, and failed. It was
one of the cases that you sometimes meet, even in this country
where
we marry by Code, of a really blind attachment all on one side,
without the faintest possibility of return. Miss Hollis looked on
Pack as some sort of vermin running about the road. He had no
prospects beyond Captain's pay, and no wits to help that out by one
anna. In a large-sized man, love like his would have been
touching.

In a good man it would have been grand. He being what he was, it
was only a nuisance.

You will believe this much. What you will not believe, is what
follows: Churton, and The Man who Knew that the Bisara was,
were
lunching at the Simla Club together. Churton was complaining of
life in general. His best mare had rolled out of stable down the
hill and had broken her back; his decisions were being reversed by
the upper Courts, more than an Assistant Commissioner of eight
years' standing has a right to expect; he knew liver and fever, and,
for weeks past, had felt out of sorts. Altogether, he was disgusted
and disheartened.

Simla Club dining-room is built, as all the world knows, in two
sections, with an arch-arrangement dividing them. Come in, turn
to
your own left, take the table under the window, and you cannot see
any one who has come in, turning to the right, and taken a table on
the right side of the arch. Curiously enough, every word that you
say can be heard, not only by the other diner, but by the servants
beyond the screen through which they bring dinner. This is worth
knowing: an echoing-room is a trap to be forewarned against.

Half in fun, and half hoping to be believed, The Man who Knew
told
Churton the story of the Bisara of Pooree at rather greater length
than I have told it to you in this place; winding up with the
suggestion that Churton might as well throw the little box down
the
hill and see whether all his troubles would go with it. In ordinary
ears, English ears, the tale was only an interesting bit of folk-
lore. Churton laughed, said that he felt better for his tiffin, and
went out. Pack had been tiffining by himself to the right of the
arch, and had heard everything. He was nearly mad with his
absurd
infatuation for Miss Hollis that all Simla had been laughing about.

It is a curious thing that, when a man hates or loves beyond reason,
he is ready to go beyond reason to gratify his feelings. Which he
would not do for money or power merely. Depend upon it,
Solomon
would never have built altars to Ashtaroth and all those ladies with
queer names, if there had not been trouble of some kind in his
zenana, and nowhere else. But this is beside the story. The facts
of the case are these: Pack called on Churton next day when
Churton
was out, left his card, and STOLE the Bisara of Pooree from its
place under the clock on the mantelpiece! Stole it like the thief
he was by nature. Three days later, all Simla was electrified by
the news that Miss Hollis had accepted Pack--the shrivelled rat,
Pack! Do you desire clearer evidence than this? The Bisara of
Pooree had been stolen, and it worked as it had always done when
won
by foul means.

There are three or four times in a man's life-when he is justified
in meddling with other people's affairs to play Providence.

The Man who Knew felt that he WAS justified; but believing and
acting on a belief are quite different things. The insolent
satisfaction of Pack as he ambled by the side of Miss Hollis, and
Churton's striking release from liver, as soon as the Bisara of
Pooree had gone, decided the Man. He explained to Churton and
Churton laughed, because he was not brought up to believe that
men
on the Government House List steal--at least little things. But the
miraculous acceptance by Miss Hollis of that tailor, Pack, decided
him to take steps on suspicion. He vowed that he only wanted to
find out where his ruby-studded silver box had vanished to. You
cannot accuse a man on the Government House List of stealing.
And
if you rifle his room you are a thief yourself. Churton, prompted
by The Man who Knew, decided on burglary. If he found nothing
in
Pack's room . . . . but it is not nice to think of what would have
happened in that case.

Pack went to a dance at Benmore--Benmore WAS Benmore in
those days,
and not an office--and danced fifteen waltzes out of twenty-two
with
Miss Hollis. Churton and The Man took all the keys that they
could
lay hands on, and went to Pack's room in the hotel, certain that his
servants would be away. Pack was a cheap soul. He had not
purchased a decent cash-box to keep his papers in, but one of those
native imitations that you buy for ten rupees. It opened to any
sort of key, and there at the bottom, under Pack's Insurance Policy,
lay the Bisara of Pooree!

Churton called Pack names, put the Bisara of Pooree in his pocket,
and went to the dance with The Man. At least, he came in time for
supper, and saw the beginning of the end in Miss Hollis's eyes.
She
was hysterical after supper, and was taken away by her Mamma.

At the dance, with the abominable Bisara in his pocket, Churton
twisted his foot on one of the steps leading down to the old Rink,
and had to be sent home in a rickshaw, grumbling. He did not
believe in the Bisara of Pooree any the more for this manifestation,
but he sought out Pack and called him some ugly names; and
"thief"
was the mildest of them. Pack took the names with the nervous
smile
of a little man who wants both soul and body to resent an insult,
and went his way. There was no public scandal.

A week later, Pack got his definite dismissal from Miss Hollis.

There had been a mistake in the placing of her affections, she said.

So he went away to Madras, where he can do no great harm even if
he
lives to be a Colonel.

Churton insisted upon The Man who Knew taking the Bisara of
Pooree
as a gift. The Man took it, went down to the Cart Road at once,
found an ekka pony with a blue head-necklace, fastened the Bisara
of
Pooree inside the necklace with a piece of shoe-string and thanked
Heaven that he was rid of a danger. Remember, in case you ever
find
it, that you must not destroy the Bisara of Pooree. I have not time
to explain why just now, but the power lies in the little wooden
fish. Mister Gubernatis or Max Muller could tell you more about
it
than I.

You will say that all this story is made up. Very well. If ever
you come across a little silver, ruby-studded box, seven-eighths of
an inch long by three-quarters wide, with a dark-brown wooden
fish,
wrapped in gold cloth, inside it, keep it. Keep it for three years,
and then you will discover for yourself whether my story is true or
false.

Better still, steal it as Pack did, and you will be sorry that you
had not killed yourself in the beginning.

THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS.

"If I can attain Heaven for a pice, why should you be envious?"
Opium Smoker's Proverb.

This is no work of mine. My friend, Gabral Misquitta, the half-
caste, spoke it all, between moonset and morning, six weeks
before
he died; and I took it down from his mouth as he answered my
questions so:--

It lies between the Copper-smith's Gully and the pipe-stem sellers'

quarter, within a hundred yards, too, as the crow flies, of the
Mosque of Wazir Khan. I don't mind telling any one this much,
but I
defy him to find the Gate, however well he may think he knows
the
City. You might even go through the very gully it stands in a
hundred times, and be none the wiser. We used to call the gully,
"the Gully of the Black Smoke," but its native name is altogether
different of course. A loaded donkey couldn't pass between the
walls; and, at one point, just before you reach the Gate, a bulged
house-front makes people go along all sideways.

It isn't really a gate though. It's a house. Old Fung-Tching had
it first five years ago. He was a boot-maker in Calcutta. They say
that he murdered his wife there when he was drunk. That was why
he
dropped bazar-rum and took to the Black Smoke instead. Later on,
he
came up north and opened the Gate as a house where you could get
your smoke in peace and quiet. Mind you, it was a pukka,
respectable opium-house, and not one of those stifling, sweltering
chandoo-khanas, that you can find all over the City. No; the old
man knew his business thoroughly, and he was most clean for a
Chinaman. He was a one-eyed little chap, not much more than
five
feet high, and both his middle fingers were gone. All the same, he
was the handiest man at rolling black pills I have ever seen. Never
seemed to be touched by the Smoke, either; and what he took day
and
night, night and day, was a caution. I've been at it five years,
and I can do my fair share of the Smoke with any one; but I was a
child to Fung-Tching that way. All the same, the old man was
keen
on his money, very keen; and that's what I can't understand. I
heard he saved a good deal before he died, but his nephew has got
all that now; and the old man's gone back to China to be buried.

He kept the big upper room, where his best customers gathered, as
neat as a new pin. In one corner used to stand Fung-Tching's Joss--
almost as ugly as Fung-Tching--and there were always sticks
burning
under his nose; but you never smelt 'em when the pipes were going
thick. Opposite the Joss was Fung-Tching's coffin. He had spent a
good deal of his savings on that, and whenever a new man came to
the
Gate he was always introduced to it. It was lacquered black, with
red and gold writings on it, and I've heard that Fung-Tching
brought
it out all the way from China. I don't know whether that's true or
not, but I know that, if I came first in the evening, I used to
spread my mat just at the foot of it. It was a quiet corner you
see, and a sort of breeze from the gully came in at the window now
and then. Besides the mats, there was no other furniture in the
room--only the coffin, and the old Joss all green and blue and
purple with age and polish.

Fung-Tching never told us why he called the place "The Gate of a
Hundred Sorrows." (He was the only Chinaman I know who used
bad-
sounding fancy names. Most of them are flowery. As you'll see in
Calcutta.) We used to find that out for ourselves. Nothing grows
on you so much, if you're white, as the Black Smoke. A yellow
man
is made different. Opium doesn't tell on him scarcely at all; but
white and black suffer a good deal. Of course, there are some
people that the Smoke doesn't touch any more than tobacco would
at
first. They just doze a bit, as one would fall asleep naturally,
and next morning they are almost fit for work. Now, I was one of
that sort when I began, but I've been at it for five years pretty
steadily, and its different now. There was an old aunt of mine,
down Agra way, and she left me a little at her death. About sixty
rupees a month secured. Sixty isn't much. I can recollect a time,
seems hundreds and hundreds of years ago, that I was getting my
three hundred a month, and pickings, when I was working on a big
timber contract in Calcutta.

I didn't stick to that work for long. The Black Smoke does not
allow of much other business; and even though I am very little
affected by it, as men go, I couldn't do a day's work now to save
my
life. After all, sixty rupees is what I want. When old Fung-Tching
was alive he used to draw the money for me, give me about half of
it
to live on (I eat very little), and the rest he kept himself. I was
free of the Gate at any time of the day and night, and could smoke
and sleep there when I liked, so I didn't care. I know the old man
made a good thing out of it; but that's no matter. Nothing matters,
much to me; and, besides, the money always came fresh and fresh
each
month.

There was ten of us met at the Gate when the place was first
opened.

Me, and two Baboos from a Government Office somewhere in
Anarkulli,
but they got the sack and couldn't pay (no man who has to work in
the daylight can do the Black Smoke for any length of time straight
on); a Chinaman that was Fung-Tching's nephew; a bazar-woman
that
had got a lot of money somehow; an English
loafer--Mac-Somebody I
think, but I have forgotten--that smoked heaps, but never seemed
to
pay anything (they said he had saved Fung-Tching's life at some
trial in Calcutta when he was a barrister): another Eurasian, like
myself, from Madras; a half-caste woman, and a couple of men
who
said they had come from the North. I think they must have been
Persians or Afghans or something. There are not more than five of
us living now, but we come regular. I don't know what happened
to
the Baboos; but the bazar-woman she died after six months of the
Gate, and I think Fung-Tching took her bangles and nose-ring for
himself. But I'm not certain. The Englishman, he drank as well as
smoked, and he dropped off. One of the Persians got killed in a
row
at night by the big well near the mosque a long time ago, and the
Police shut up the well, because they said it was full of foul air.

They found him dead at the bottom of it. So, you see, there is only
me, the Chinaman, the half-caste woman that we call the
Memsahib
(she used to live with Fung-Tching), the other Eurasian, and one of
the Persians. The Memsahib looks very old now. I think she was
a
young woman when the Gate was opened; but we are all old for
the
matter of that. Hundreds and hundreds of years old. It is very
hard to keep count of time in the Gate, and besides, time doesn't
matter to me. I draw my sixty rupees fresh and fresh every month.

A very, very long while ago, when I used to be getting three
hundred
and fifty rupees a month, and pickings, on a big timber-contract at
Calcutta, I had a wife of sorts. But she's dead now. People said
that I killed her by taking to the Black Smoke. Perhaps I did, but
it's so long since it doesn't matter. Sometimes when I first came
to the Gate, I used to feel sorry for it; but that's all over and
done with long ago, and I draw my sixty rupees fresh and fresh
every
month, and am quite happy. Not DRUNK happy, you know, but
always
quiet and soothed and contented.

How did I take to it? It began at Calcutta. I used to try it in my
own house, just to see what it was like. I never went very far, but
I think my wife must have died then. Anyhow, I found myself
here,
and got to know Fung-Tching. I don't remember rightly how that
came
about; but he told me of the Gate and I used to go there, and,
somehow, I have never got away from it since. Mind you, though,
the
Gate was a respectable place in Fung-Tching's time where you
could
be comfortable, and not at all like the chandoo-khanas where the
niggers go. No; it was clean and quiet, and not crowded. Of
course, there were others beside us ten and the man; but we always
had a mat apiece with a wadded woollen head-piece, all covered
with
black and red dragons and things; just like a coffin in the corner.

At the end of one's third pipe the dragons used to move about and
fight. I've watched 'em, many and many a night through. I used to
regulate my Smoke that way, and now it takes a dozen pipes to
make
'em stir. Besides, they are all torn and dirty, like the mats, and
old Fung-Tching is dead. He died a couple of years ago, and gave
me
the pipe I always use now--a silver one, with queer beasts crawling
up and down the receiver-bottle below the cup. Before that, I
think, I used a big bamboo stem with a copper cup, a very small
one,
and a green jade mouthpiece. It was a little thicker than a
walking-stick stem, and smoked sweet, very sweet. The bamboo
seemed
to suck up the smoke. Silver doesn't, and I've got to clean it out
now and then, that's a great deal of trouble, but I smoke it for the
old man's sake. He must have made a good thing out of me, but he
always gave me clean mats and pillows, and the best stuff you
could
get anywhere.

When he died, his nephew Tsin-ling took up the Gate, and he
called
it the "Temple of the Three Possessions;" but we old ones speak of
it as the "Hundred Sorrows," all the same. The nephew does things
very shabbily, and I think the Memsahib must help him. She lives
with him; same as she used to do with the old man. The two let in
all sorts of low people, niggers and all, and the Black Smoke isn't
as good as it used to be. I've found burnt bran in my pipe over and
over again. The old man would have died if that had happened in
his
time. Besides, the room is never cleaned, and all the mats are torn
and cut at the edges. The coffin has gone--gone to China again--
with the old man and two ounces of smoke inside it, in case he
should want 'em on the way.

The Joss doesn't get so many sticks burnt under his nose as he used
to; that's a sign of ill-luck, as sure as Death. He's all brown,
too, and no one ever attends to him. That's the Memsahib's work, I
know; because, when Tsin-ling tried to burn gilt paper before him,
she said it was a waste of money, and, if he kept a stick burning
very slowly, the Joss wouldn't know the difference. So now we've
got the sticks mixed with a lot of glue, and they take half-an-hour
longer to burn, and smell stinky. Let alone the smell of the room
by itself. No business can get on if they try that sort of thing.

The Joss doesn't like it. I can see that. Late at night,
sometimes, he turns all sorts of queer colors--blue and green and
red--just as he used to do when old Fung-Tching was alive; and he
rolls his eyes and stamps his feet like a devil.

I don't know why I don't leave the place and smoke quietly in a
little room of my own in the bazar. Most like, Tsin-ling would kill
me if I went away--he draws my sixty rupees now--and besides, it's
so much trouble, and I've grown to be very fond of the Gate. It's
not much to look at. Not what it was in the old man's time, but I
couldn't leave it. I've seen so many come in and out. And I've
seen so many die here on the mats that I should be afraid of dying
in the open now. I've seen some things that people would call
strange enough; but nothing is strange when you're on the Black
Smoke, except the Black Smoke. And if it was, it wouldn't matter.

Fung-Tching used to be very particular about his people, and never
got in any one who'd give trouble by dying messy and such. But
the
nephew isn't half so careful. He tells everywhere that he keeps a
"first-chop" house. Never tries to get men in quietly, and make
them comfortable like Fung-Tching did. That's why the Gate is
getting a little bit more known than it used to be. Among the
niggers of course. The nephew daren't get a white, or, for matter
of that, a mixed skin into the place. He has to keep us three of
course--me and the Memsahib and the other Eurasian. We're
fixtures.

But he wouldn't give us credit for a pipeful--not for anything.

One of these days, I hope, I shall die in the Gate. The Persian and
the Madras man are terrible shaky now. They've got a boy to light
their pipes for them. I always do that myself. Most like, I shall
see them carried out before me. I don't think I shall ever outlive
the Memsahib or Tsin-ling. Women last longer than men at the
Black-
Smoke, and Tsin-ling has a deal of the old man's blood in him,
though he DOES smoke cheap stuff. The bazar-woman knew
when she was
going two days before her time; and SHE died on a clean mat with
a
nicely wadded pillow, and the old man hung up her pipe just above
the Joss. He was always fond of her, I fancy. But he took her
bangles just the same.

I should like to die like the bazar-woman--on a clean, cool mat
with
a pipe of good stuff between my lips. When I feel I'm going, I
shall ask Tsin-ling for them, and he can draw my sixty rupees a
month, fresh and fresh, as long as he pleases, and watch the black
and red dragons have their last big fight together; and then . . . .

Well, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters much to me--only I
wished
Tsin-ling wouldn't put bran into the Black Smoke.

THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN.

"Who is the happy man? He that sees in his own house at home
little
children crowned with dust, leaping and falling and crying."

Munichandra, translated by Professor Peterson.

The polo-ball was an old one, scarred, chipped, and dinted. It
stood on the mantelpiece among the pipe-stems which Imam Din,
khitmatgar, was cleaning for me.

"Does the Heaven-born want this ball?" said Imam Din,
deferentially.

The Heaven-born set no particular store by it; but of what use was
a
polo-ball to a khitmatgar?

"By Your Honor's favor, I have a little son. He has seen this ball,
and desires it to play with. I do not want it for myself."

No one would for an instant accuse portly old Imam Din of
wanting to
play with polo-balls. He carried out the battered thing into the
verandah; and there followed a hurricane of joyful squeaks, a
patter
of small feet, and the thud-thud-thud of the ball rolling along the
ground. Evidently the little son had been waiting outside the door
to secure his treasure. But how had he managed to see that polo-
ball?

Next day, coming back from office half an hour earlier than usual,
I
was aware of a small figure in the dining-room--a tiny, plump
figure
in a ridiculously inadequate shirt which came, perhaps, half-way
down the tubby stomach. It wandered round the room, thumb in
mouth,
crooning to itself as it took stock of the pictures. Undoubtedly
this was the "little son."

He had no business in my room, of course; but was so deeply
absorbed
in his discoveries that he never noticed me in the doorway. I
stepped into the room and startled him nearly into a fit. He sat
down on the ground with a gasp. His eyes opened, and his mouth
followed suit. I knew what was coming, and fled, followed by a
long, dry howl which reached the servants' quarters far more
quickly
than any command of mine had ever done. In ten seconds Imam
Din was
in the dining-room. Then despairing sobs arose, and I returned to
find Imam Din admonishing the small sinner who was using most
of his
shirt as a handkerchief.

"This boy," said Imam Din, judicially, "is a budmash, a big
budmash.

He will, without doubt, go to the jail-khana for his behavior."
Renewed yells from the penitent, and an elaborate apology to
myself
from Imam Din.

"Tell the baby," said I, "that the Sahib is not angry, and take him
away." Imam Din conveyed my forgiveness to the offender, who
had
now gathered all his shirt round his neck, string-wise, and the yell
subsided into a sob. The two set off for the door. "His name,"
said Imam Din, as though the name were part of the crime, "is
Muhammad Din, and he is a budmash." Freed from present
danger,
Muhammad Din turned round, in his father's arms, and said
gravely:--
"It is true that my name is Muhammad Din, Tahib, but I am not a
budmash. I am a MAN!"

From that day dated my acquaintance with Muhammad Din.
Never again
did he come into my dining-room, but on the neutral ground of the
compound, we greeted each other with much state, though our
conversation was confined to "Talaam, Tahib" from his side and
"Salaam Muhammad Din" from mine. Daily on my return from
office,
the little white shirt, and the fat little body used to rise from
the shade of the creeper-covered trellis where they had been hid;
and daily I checked my horse here, that my salutation might not be
slurred over or given unseemly.

Muhammad Din never had any companions. He used to trot about
the
compound, in and out of the castor-oil bushes, on mysterious
errands
of his own. One day I stumbled upon some of his handiwork far
down
the ground. He had half buried the polo-ball in dust, and stuck six
shrivelled old marigold flowers in a circle round it. Outside that
circle again, was a rude square, traced out in bits of red brick
alternating with fragments of broken china; the whole bounded by
a
little bank of dust. The bhistie from the well-curb put in a plea
for the small architect, saying that it was only the play of a baby
and did not much disfigure my garden.

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