The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-03-05
KIPLING A BUSY MAN.
Time is Money With Him and He Cannot
Be Interrupted.

BE Interrupted.
Rudyard Kipling enjoys the reputa-
tion of being a bear.
Whether he earned the reputation
honestly or not, people have come to
regard him as, if not out and out snob-
bish in dealings with strangers and or
uinary people, at least exceedingly diff
cult.
At the time he was living in Brattle-
boro. VT, four or five years ago, he
was a big man, though not quite so big
as he has since become. AS is the
American wont when a hon comes to
reside among US, we extended to Mr..
Kipling the full force of our curiosity
and interest in him, and reporters, call
ers, lion hunters of all kinds, most of
them strangers to him and his family,
made pilgrimages to Bratteboro with
the object of obtaining a birdseye view
of the great man.
Now, the creator of Mulvaney Portho,
and Orthesis objected to being made a
raree-shoW of. He hated to see every
day or two bringing a complete and
total stranger. frequently common
place or obnoxious stranger, to his door
to look at him and ask him questions.
Furthermore, Mr.. Kipling was and is
a very busy man. There may be peo-
pie who will question this statement
people whose idea of work is to carry
a bod on your shoulders or WELD a
pick. These will certainly, deny that
a man whose occupation is to push a
pen over the surface of a sheet of pa
per can be said to work.
Still and for all, Mr.. Kipling is a very
busy man. He spends his waking mo-
ments doing one of two things. Either
he is writing, or else he is taking re-
creation and collecting his IDEAS SO that
he may write. One is as important as
the other. If he places a high valuation
upon his time, it is no more than other
intelligent people. Therefore, if Mr.
Kipling refused to see the pilgrims " no
haunted Brattleboro, and If those who
from hardihood or a pull, pierced his
penetralia, and if again. Mrs Kip,ing
was obliged to spend a good part Of
her time in keeping her husbands adj
mirers at bay, the most that need be
said is that they both had a good cX
cuse for whatever may have seemed
surly and erratic.
That Mr.. Kipling, when approached
in the right way, could be accommo-
dating and genial, the letter which fol-
lows goes to prove. Nearly five years
ago a member of The Spy's staff had
occasion to feel some curiosity as to
the origin Of the term Tommy At
kins" as applied to the British sci
der. In her dilemma she wrote to- Mr..
Kipling as to the one man in the world
who would know all there was to know
about Tommy Atkins" By return post
she received this reply.
"Naulakha, Brattleboro. Vermont,
'Nov II, 1894.
"Dear Miss -:
'IH reply to your letter of the 10Th
instant, asking how the name Tommy
Atkins came to be applied to the Brit
ish soldier, l can only give the tTadl-
ton that some many years, when a
new set of ruled forms-pay-rolls or
the lke--were issued the clerk of the
government office responsible for them
filled in a dummy one to show how it
should be done, and used the name IT.
Atkins as that of his imaginary prI-
vate The forms, of course were pref
ty extensively circulated and the name
stuck in consequence. That is the ira
dition, but my own theory G give it
for what 1t may be WORTH is that when
the British soldier was first uniformed
and drilled and equipped everybody
who saw him said: He looks like a
Tommy Atkins. He is a Tommy At
kins Let's call him Tommy Atkins
and so they did, following unconscious
ly the example Of Adam and Eve when
they had occasion to give a name to
the toad in the Garden of Eden
81 may add that the British private
does not in the least like being adj
dressed or referred to as Tommy
though he generously allows the civil
ian who knows no better to write of
him loosely under that title.'