The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-02-21
Interview with Kipling
washington starr

1900
Il hear that Rudyard Kipling's manners
have improved a good deal since he first
came TO this country. nearly ten years
ago, and that he has cut out that short.
sharp and decisive pose that he chung TO
so tenaciOuSly," said q O-rrespOuden of
a Chicago paper who used TO be a hotel
reporter in the town of wind. Il was sent
down to kipling's hotel TO pick a bit of
talk out of MIN when he first struck Chi
cago, on his way from San Francisco TO
New York. He wasn't quite such d big
gun then as he is now. but he was big
enough All the way from the coast to
Chicago the reporters he had met had
been hammering him as a case of a re-
markably bright young man afflicted with
elephantIasis OF the kull / concluded
that all of this anvil chorus music made
unjust. l had such an opinion of my own
interviewing skill that / would have been
willing to lay better than even money
that L would succeed in getting a cork
ing. red-hOt talk out of the young East
Indian.
He got into Chicago at 4 o'clock in the
afternoon. too late for the hotel reporters
for the afternoon papers to get in a talk
with him.. kipling put up at the Richie
lieu. and sent up my card to him about
I O'Clock in the evening. After about five
minutes a young man wearing a very
baS6y suit of clothes and the bummest
black Derby hat l ever saw. got of the
elevator and shambled into the hotel lob
by. l knew the young man was kipling.
He looked about the same then as he does
now-same bulldog, MISUNDERSTANDING
Jaw, same moustacne. searching eyes and
general look of slOuchiness.
He had my card in his hand as he en-
tered the hotel lobby. He seemed to re-
gard the card as a great curiosity. He ex-
amined it from all points of view, walked
over to the window front of the hotel and
scrutinized it from top to bottom; held it
out at arms length, and seemed TO have
all kinds of difficulty in arriving at a de-
termination what the deuce the card
meant. l walked over to where he was
fumbling with the card at the window
front.
NJ Kipling?' 1 said.
II turned upon me sharply. He looked
me in the eyes. Then he lowered his eyes
to my feet and began a slow study of mt
from my shoes up. When his eyes finally
reached the point of my chin he looked at
my twisted card in his hand and said in Il
short. choppy voice:
"'Um-what if l m I don't know
you. Did you send me this card2'
Il admitted the soft Impeachment.
- am just after being hurtled down
here by my city editor to find out what
the devil 1 said. Go ahead. Let's have
it., Cough up. Any old thing you say
will do,
''Kipling's rugged countenance was mo-
mentarily crossed by a very boyish, fetch
ing grin; -, oheetv sort aren.t
yOu?' he inquired. not quite so choppily
as he had spoken before. What does your
blasted city editor or anybody else sup
pose that | know about he devil. the flesh
or the world? I'm only six-and-tWenty-a
kid: Il kid in England. at any rate, where
precocity. instead of being at a premium,
as it seems to be over here, is a social
vice. THE world. the flesh and the devil?'
Haven't you got any hoary patrlarchs
here. to whom you can put That Ques-
.Slews of en- 1 replied. But they
haven't written books about the dong of
Mulvaney. Ortheris and Learoyd- That
stuff of yours is pretty Sood-that is. ii
isn't half bad. You're of the improving
sort. ! think. and you'll probably DO some
very decent work later on, when you get
next to yourself
.'Kipling took off his spectacles. wiped
them with his pocket handkerchief. read
justed them. and looked me through Tor
fully a minute before he spoke.
81 say he said then, you re Il con-
founded impertinent sort of a cove, aren't
you? What the deuce do you mean? It's
solacing TO run across a man who's de-
vised Of pure gall-it's novel mean.
What do you want me to sayy
How do you like what you've seen of
this country, anyhowT ,in IL a as az him' 10
a. like it in spots he replied. What
difference does it make whether l like 1t
or not?
ed. We strive TO please. We desire to be
patted on the back some. I'll take 1t down
in shorthand
%" L wish you'd go away ana let me
alone said Kipling.
If | was working for a salary. instead
of writing on space. I'd oblige you. for
this isn't funny for me said l. Tell me
things about American soldiers, /!
what you've seen of them.
They're q blooming fine lot. your SOL
iiers are said kipling. looking interested
They are crack men-way-up men-the
horse outfits especially. " visited about
a dozen posts. and I'd like to have spent
q month at each of 'em. l imagine it must
he fine work. soldering down there in
Nice work. said I. I often long to be
at old San Carlos. l put in three
years as a buck private in one of the
troonS down there.
well. that's how 1 got Kipling-because
had soldiered. and if there is one thing
hat interests Kinling more than another
soldering. His homelv Dhiz lit up
when I mentioned that soldering incident
n my tumultuous career, and for three