The Project Gutenberg EBook of Actions and Reactions, by Rudyard Kipling

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Title: Actions and Reactions

Author: Rudyard Kipling

Posting Date: March 11, 2009 [EBook #2381]
Release Date: November, 2000

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACTIONS AND REACTIONS ***

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ACTIONS AND REACTIONS

By Rudyard Kipling

CONTENTS

An Habitation Enforced
The Recall

Garm--a Hostage
The Power of the Dog

The Mother Hive
The Bees and the Flies

With the Night Mail
The Four Angels

A Deal in Cotton
The New Knighthood

The Puzzler
The Puzzler Little Foxes
Gallio's Song

The House Surgeon
The Rabbi's Song

ACTIONS AND REACTIONS

AN HABITATION ENFORCED

My friend, if cause doth wrest thee,
Ere folly hath much oppressed thee,
Far from acquaintance kest thee
Where country may digest thee...
Thank God that so hath blessed thee,
And sit down, Robin, and rest thee.
--THOMAS TUSSER.

It came without warning, at the very hour his hand was outstretched to
crumple the Holz and Gunsberg Combine. The New York doctors called it
overwork, and he lay in a darkened room, one ankle crossed above
the other, tongue pressed into palate, wondering whether the next
brain-surge of prickly fires would drive his soul from all anchorages.
At last they gave judgment. With care he might in two years return to
the arena, but for the present he must go across the water and do no
work whatever. He accepted the terms. It was capitulation; but the
Combine that had shivered beneath his knife gave him all the honours
of war: Gunsberg himself, full of condolences, came to the steamer and
filled the Chapins' suite of cabins with overwhelming flower-works.

"Smilax," said George Chapin when he saw them. "Fitz is right. I'm dead;
only I don't see why he left out the 'In Memoriam' on the ribbons!"

"Nonsense!" his wif