Rewards and Fairies - Penn State University

Rudyard Kipling
and, a ship’s captain with a fiddle under his arm—well, I don’t Paris, and he sails out to St Cloud down the river here—don’t
blame ‘em that they didn’t believe me.
stare at the river, you young fool! —and all in front of these
‘I come back to the barge one day—late in this month pig-jobbing lawyers and citizens he makes himself Consul,
Brumaire it was—fair beazled out. Old Maingon, the care- which is as good as a King. He’ll be King, too, in the next
taker, he’d lit a fire in a bucket and was grilling a herring. three turns of the capstan—King of France, England, and the
‘“Courage, mon ami,” he says. “Dinner is served.” world! Think o’ that!” he shouts, “and eat your herring.”
‘“I can’t eat,” I says. “I can’t do any more. It’s stronger than ‘I says something about Boney. If he hadn’t been fighting
I am.” ‘“Bah!” he says. “Nothing’s stronger than a man. Me, England I shouldn’t have lost my ‘baccy—should I?
for example! Less than two years ago I was blown up in the ‘“Young fellow,” says Maingon, “you don’t understand.”
Orient in Aboukir Bay, but I descended again and hit the ‘We heard cheering. A carriage passed over the bridge with
water like a fairy. Look at me now,” he says. He wasn’t much two in it. ‘“That’s the man himself,” says Maingon. “He’ll give
to look at, for he’d only one leg and one eye, but the ‘em something to cheer for soon.” He stands at the salute.
cheerfullest soul that ever trod shoe-leather. “That’s worse than ‘“Who’s t’other in black beside him?” I asks, fairly shaking
a hundred and eleven hogshead of ‘baccy,” he goes on. “You’re all over.
young, too! What wouldn’t I give to be young in France at ‘“Ah! he’s the clever one. You’ll hear of him before long.
this hour! There’s nothing you couldn’t do,” he says. “The He’s that scoundrel-bishop, Talleyrand.”
ball’s at your feet—kick it!” he says. He kicks the old fire- ‘“It is!” I said, and up the steps I went with my fiddle, and
bucket with his peg-leg. “General Buonaparte, for example!” run after the carriage calling, “Abbe, Abbe!”
he goes on. “That man’s a babe compared to me, and see ‘A soldier knocked the wind out of me with the back of his
what he’s done already. He’s conquered Egypt and Austria and sword, but I had sense to keep on following till the carriage
Italy—oh! half Europe!” he says, “and now he sails back to stopped—and there just was a crowd round the house-door!
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