Explore "His Wedded Wife" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Cry "Murder!" in the market-place, and each Will turn upon his neighbor anxious eyes That ask:"Art thou the man?" We hunted Cain Some centuries ago, across the world, That bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain To-day. - Vibart's Moralities.
Shakespeare says something about worms, or it may be giants or beetles, turning if you tread on them too severely. The safest plan is never to tread on a worm--not even on the last new subaltern from Home, with his buttons hardly out of their tissue paper, and the red of sappy English beef in his cheeks. This is the story of the worm that turned. For the sake of brevity, we will call Henry Augustus Ramsay Faizanne, "The Worm," although he really was an exceedingly pretty boy, without a hair on his face, and with a waist like a girl's, when he came out to the Second "Shikarris" and was made unhappy in several ways. The "Shikarris" are a high-caste regiment, and you must be able to do things well--play a banjo, or ride more than little, or sing, or act--to get on with them.