An endeavor to find Rudyard Kipling at home is very much like trying to
discover the North Pole. Most people have an idea that there is a North
Pole somewhere, but up to the hour of going to press few have managed to
locate it definitely. The same is true of Mr. Kipling's home. He has
one, no doubt, somewhere, but exactly where that favored spot is, is as
yet undetermined. My first effort to find him was at his residence in
Vermont, but upon my arrival I learned that he had fled from the Green
Mountain State in order to escape from the autograph-hunters who were
continually lurking about his estate. Next I sought him at his lodgings
in London, but the fog was so thick that if so be he was within I could
not find him. Then taking a P. & O. steamer, I went out to Calcutta, and
thence to Simla. In neither place was he to be found, and I sailed to
Egypt, hired a camel, and upon this ship of the desert cruised down the
easterly coast of Africa to the Transvaal, where I was informed that,
while he had been there recently, Mr. Kipling had returned to London. I
immediately turned about, and upon my faithful and wobbly steed took a
short-cut catacornerwise across to Algiers, where I was fortunate enough
to intercept the steamer upon which the object of my quest was sailing
back to Britain.
[Illustration: INTERCEPTED THE STEAMER]
He was travelling _incog._ as Mr. Peters, but I recognized him in a
moment, not only by his vocabulary, but by his close resemblance to a
wood-cut I had once seen in the advertisement of a famous dermatologist,
which I had been told was a better portrait of Kipling than of Dr.
Skinberry himself, whose skill in making people look unlike themselves
was celebrated by the publication of the wood-cut in question.
He was leaning gracefully over the starboard galley as I walked up the
gang-plank. I did not speak to him, however, until after the vessel had
sailed. I am too old a hand at interviewing modest people to be
precipitate, and knew that if I began to talk to Mr. Kipling about my
mission before we started, he would in all probability sneak ashore and
wait over a steamer to escape me. Once started, he was doomed, unless he
should choose to jump overboard. So I waited, and finally, as Gibraltar
gradually sank below the horizon, I tackled him.
[Illustration: ON THE LANYARD DECK]
"Mr. Kipling?" said I, as we met on the lanyard deck.
"Peters," said he, nervously, lighting a jinrikisha.
"All the same," I retorted, taking out my note-book, "I've come to
interview you at home. Are you a good sailor?"
"I'm good at whatever I try," said he. "Therefore you can wager a
spring bonnet against a Kohat that I am a good sailor."
"Excuse me for asking," said I. "It was necessary to ascertain. My
instructions are to interview you at home. If you are a good sailor,
then you are at home on the sea, so we may begin. What work are you
engaged on now?"
"The hardest of my life," he replied. "I am now trying to avoid an
American lady journalist. I know you are an American by the Cuban flag
you are wearing in your button-hole. I know that you are a lady, because
you wear a bonnet, which a gentleman would not do if he could. And I
know you are a journalist, because you have confessed it. But for
goodness' sake, madam, address me as Peters, and I will talk on forever.
If it were known on this boat that I am Kipling, I should be compelled
to write autographs for the balance of the voyage, and I have come away
for a rest."
"Very well, Mr. Peters," said I. "I will respect your wishes. Why did
you go to South Africa?"
"After color. I am writing a new book, and I needed color. There are
more colored people in Africa than anywhere else. Wherefore--"
"I see," said I. "And did you get it?"
"Humph!" he sneered. "Did I get it? It is evident, madam, that you have
not closely studied the career of Rudyard--er--Peters. Did he ever fail
to get anything he wanted?"
"I don't know," I replied. "That's what I wanted to find out."
"Well, you may draw your own conclusions," he retorted, "when I speak
that beautiful and expressive American word 'Nit.'"
I put the word down for future use. It is always well for an American to
make use of her own language as far as is possible, and nowhere can one
gain a better idea of what is distinctively American than from a study
of English authors who use Americanisms with an apology--paid for, no
doubt, at space rates.
"Have you been at work on the ocean?" I inquired.
"No," said he. "Why should I work on the ocean? I can't improve the
ocean."
"Excuse me," said I. "I didn't know that you were a purist."
"I'm not," said he. "I'm a Peters."
There was a pause, and I began to suspect that beneath his suave
exterior Mr. Kipling concealed a certain capacity for being
disagreeable.
"I didn't know," I said, "but that you had spent some of your time
interviewing the boilers or the engines of the ship. A man who can make
a locomotive over into an attractive conversationalist ought to be able
to make a donkey-engine, for instance, on shipboard, seem less like a
noisy jackass than it is."
"Good!" he cried, his face lighting up. "There's an idea there. Gad!
I'll write a poem on the donkey-engine as a sort of companion to my
McAndrews Hymn, and, what is more, I will acknowledge my debt to you
for suggesting the idea."
"I'm much obliged, Mr.--er--Peters," said I, coldly, "but you needn't.
You are welcome to the idea, but I prefer to make my own name for
myself. If you put me in one of your books, I should become immortal;
and while I wish to become immortal, I prefer to do it without outside
assistance."
Peters, _ne_ Kipling, immediately melted.
"If you were a man," said he, "I'd slap you on the back and call the
steward to ask you what you'd have."
"Thank you," said I. "Under the circumstances, I am glad I am not a man.
I do not wish to be slapped on the back, even by a British author. But
if you really wish to repay me for my suggestion, drop your unnatural
modesty and let me interview you frankly. Tell me what you think--if you
ever do think. You've been so meteoric that one naturally credits you
with more heart and spontaneity than thought and care."
"Very well," said he. "Let the cross-examination begin."
"Do you ride a bicycle?" I asked.
"Not at sea," he replied.
"What is your favorite wheel?" I asked.
"The last that is sent me by the maker," he answered.
"Do you use any tonic--hair, health, or otherwise--which you
particularly recommend to authors?" I asked.
"I must refuse to answer that question until I have received the usual
check," said Mr.--er--Peters.
"Do you still hold with the Spanish that Americans are pigs, and that
New York is a trough?" I asked.
"There are exceptions, and when I last saw New York I was not a
conscious witness of any particularly strong devotion to the pen," he
answered, uneasily and evasively.
"Do you like the American climate?" I asked.
"Is there such a thing?" he asked, in return. "If there is, I didn't
see it. You Americans are in the experimental stage of existence in
weather as in government. I don't think you have as yet settled upon any
settled climate. My experience has been that during any week in any
season of the year you have a different climate for each day. I can say
this, however, that your changes are such that the average is
uncomfortable. It is hot one day and cold the next; baking the third;
wintry the fourth; humid the fifth; dry the sixth; and on the seventh
you begin with sunshine before breakfast, follow it up with rain before
luncheon, and a sleigh ride after dinner."
It was evident that Mr.--er--Peters had not lost his powers of
observation.
"Why have you left Vermont, Mr. Kipling?" I asked.
"Peters!" he remonstrated, in a beseeching whisper.
"Excuse me, Mr. Peters," said I. "Why have you left Vermont, Mr.
Peters?"
"That is a delicate question, madam," he replied. "Are you not aware
that my house is still in the market?"
"I am instructed," said I, drawing out my check-book, "to get an answer
to any question I may choose to ask, at any cost. If you fear to reply
because it may prevent a sale of your house, I will buy the house at
your own price."
"Forty thousand dollars," said he. "It's worth twenty thousand, but in
the hurry of my departure I left fifty thousand dollars' worth of notes
stored away in the attic."