文档介绍：STORIES
STORIES
by English Authors, Orient
1
STORIES
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE
KING
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy
to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under
circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other
was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came near
to kinship with what might have been a veritable King, and was promised
the reversion of a Kingdom--army, law-courts, revenue, and policy all
complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear that my King is dead, and if I want a
crown I must go hunt it for myself.
The beginning of everything was in a railway-train upon the road to
Mhow from Ajmir. There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which
necessitated travelling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as
First-Class, but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no
cushions in the Intermediate class, and the population are either
Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey
is nasty, or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do
not buy from refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in bundles and
pots, and buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the
roadside water. This is why in hot weather Intermediates are taken out of
the carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down
upon.
My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached
Nasirabad, when the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered,
and, following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He
was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated taste for
whisky. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of out-of-the-way
corners of the Empire into which he had rated, and of adventures in
which he risked his life for a few days' food.
"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than