The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-02-26
AN AMUSING STORY.
The Englishman Couldn't
Turn Him Down.


said correspondent Of Chicago pa
! per, who used to be hotel reporter in
the town of wind II was sent down to
| klpling's hotel to pick a bit of talk
out OF him when he first struck Chica-
go, ON his way from San Francisco to
new YORK He wasn't quite such a big
| gun then as he is now, but he was big
| enough. All the way from the coast
10 chicago the reporters he had met
mad been hammering him as a case of
a remarkably bright Young man af-
| flloted with elephanIiasis OF the skull
concluded that all of this anvil cho-
rus music made by the reporters Kip
ling mad met was unjust. 1 had such
! an opinion of my own interviewing
sRlll that l would have been willing
| TO lay better than even money that I'd
succeed in getting a corking, redhot
talk out OF. the young East Indian.
He got into Chicago at o'clock in
the afternoon, too late for the hotel
| reporters for the afternoon papers TO
get in talk with him Kipling put up
| at the Richelieu, and l sent my card
| up to him about Z o'clock in the eve
ming. After about ave minutes young
man wearing a very baggy suit Of
clothes and the FUNNIEST black Derby
hat ever saw got off the elevator and
| 1
the young man was Kipling. He looked
about the same then as he does now
same bulldog, rock .of-Gibraltar jaw,
| stupby mustache, searching eyes and
| general look of slouchiness.
HE had my card in his hand as he
entered the hotel lobby. He seemed to
regard the card as a great curiosity.
He examined it from all points of view,
walked over to the window front of the
/ hotel to
bottom; held it out at arms length,
and seemed to have all kinds of diff
Guilty in arriving at a determination
what the deuce the card meant. 1
walked over to where he was fumbling
with the card at the window front.
Mr.. Kipling?' 1 said.
| HE turned upon NE sharply. He
| looked me in the eyes. Then he low
cred his eyes to my feet and began a
slow study of me 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 a short,
| choppy voice:
'Um-what if I am" [ don't know
you. Did you send ne this card?
| 81 admitted the soft Impeachment.
| I am just after being hurled down
| here by my city editor to find out what
| you think about the world, the flesh
and the devil / said. Go ahead. Let's
have it. Cough up. Any old thing you
say will do.
dKiplings rugged countenance was
momentarily crossed by a very boyish,
fetching grin.
| You're a pretty cheeky sort, aren't
your he inquired, not quite so choppily
as he had spoken before. What does
your blasted city editor OF anybody else
suppose that 1 know about the devil
the flesh or the world? I'm
only six-and-twenty a kid; a kid
in England, at any rate, where
precocity, instead of being at a prem
ium, as it seems to be over here is a
social vice. THE world, the flesh and
the devir'? Haven't you got any hoary
patriarchs here, to whom you can put
| that questions?
'Slews of EN- 7 replied. But they
| haven't written books about the doings
of Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd
That stuff of yours is pretty good-that
| is, it isn't half bad You're of the i'm
proving sort, 1 think, and you'll prob
| ably do some very decent work later
on, when you get next to yourself
Kipling took off his spectacles,
wiped them with his pocket handker-
CHER, readjusted them, and looked me
through for fully a minute before he
spoke.
II say he said then, you're a 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 devised of pure gall-its
novel | mean. What do you want me
to say?'
How do you like what you've seen
OF this country, anyhow? I asked him.
to make a switch in the line of talk.
" like it in spots he replied. What
dlnerence does it make whether 1 like
| it or not?
Lots 1 said. We want to be an
proved. We strive to please. We desire
to be Datted on the back. Go on and
| pat us on the back some more. I'll take
/ 1t down in shorthand
| wish you'd go away and let me
| alone said Kipling.
II was working for a salary, in
! stead OF writing on space, I'd oblige
you, for this isn't any fun for me, said
| |. Tell me some things about Amer
/ lean soldiers, what you've seen of
them
They're a blooming fine lot. your
soldiers are said Kipling, looking in
terested. They are crack men-way-
up men-the horse outfits especially.
I've visited about a dozen posts, and
I'd like to have spent a month at each
of EN-. / imagine& must be fine work
soldering down there in Arizona
Nice work said I. I often long
to be back at old San Carlos. | put in
three years as buck private in one Of
the troops down there
We'll, that's how I got Kipling-be-
cause | had soldiered, and if there s
one thing that interests Kipling more
than another it's soldering. His home
ly phiz lit up when / mentioned that
soldering incident in my tumultuous
career and for three quarters of an
hour he sat there in the window front
of the Hotel Richelieu and talked over
the military end of it in a clever, Luz
minous, sketchy way that was full of
meat. He told me all about the Amer
lean military posts he had visited,
comparing our soldiers with the men
who compose the British outfits, and
well, it made over two columns of tip-
top stuff. When / rose to take my
leave of Kipling I said
Now, don't forget-whenever YOU
write something that you think is real
/ ly good, just send me along a batch
/ of advance proofs, and I'll give you
a stick or two of a notice in my paper.
if / approve Of the stuff and consider
! it up to the mark
'Kipling simply glared at me amused
! ly out of his shrewd eyes, said some
thing that sounded like impudent
whelpH and I went away to write my
/ interview"
| POrIy frlpErT 1 L,1s