A Diversity of Creatures. Редьярд Киплинг

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       Rudyard Kipling

      A Diversity of Creatures

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664100603

Table of Contents

       PREFACE

       A DIVERSITY OF CREATURES

       As Easy as A.B.C.

       (1912)

       Friendly Brook

       (March 1914)

       In the Same Boat

       (1911)

       The Honours of War

       (1911)

       The Dog Hervey

       (April 1914)

       The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat

       (1913)

       In The Presence

       (1912)

       REGULUS

       (1917)

       The Edge of the Evening

       (1913)

       The Horse Marines

       (1911)

       'My Son's Wife'

       (1913)

       The Vortex

       (August 1914)

       'Swept and Garnished'

       (January 1915)

       Mary Postgate

       (1915)

PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      With two exceptions, the dates at the head of these stories show when they were published in magazine form. 'The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat,' and 'My Son's Wife' carry the dates when they were written.

      RUDYARD KIPLING.

A DIVERSITY OF CREATURES

       Table of Contents

As Easy as A.B.C.

       Table of Contents

(1912)

       Table of Contents

      The A.B.C., that semi-elected, semi-nominated body of a few score persons, controls the Planet. Transportation is Civilisation, our motto runs. Theoretically we do what we please, so long as we do not interfere with the traffic and all it implies. Practically, the A.B.C. confirms or annuls all international arrangements, and, to judge from its last report, finds our tolerant, humorous, lazy little Planet only too ready to shift the whole burden of public administration on its shoulders.

'With the Night Mail[1].'

[1] Actions and Reactions.

      Isn't it almost time that our Planet took some interest in the proceedings of the Aërial Board of Control? One knows that easy communications nowadays, and lack of privacy in the past, have killed all curiosity among mankind, but as the Board's Official Reporter I am bound to tell my tale.

      At 9.30 A.m., August 26, A.D. 2065, the Board, sitting in London, was informed by De Forest that the District of Northern Illinois had riotously cut itself out of all systems and would remain disconnected till the Board should take over and administer it direct.

      Every Northern Illinois freight and passenger tower was, he reported, out of action; all District main, local, and guiding lights had been extinguished; all General Communications were dumb, and through traffic had been diverted. No reason had been given, but he gathered unofficially from the Mayor of Chicago that the District complained of 'crowd-making and invasion of privacy.'

      As a matter of fact, it is of no importance whether Northern Illinois stay in or out of planetary circuit; as a matter of policy, any complaint of invasion of privacy needs immediate investigation, lest worse follow.

      By 9–45 A.m. De Forest, Dragomiroff (Russia), Takahira (Japan), and Pirolo (Italy) were empowered to visit Illinois and 'to take such steps as might be necessary for the resumption of traffic and all that that implies.' By 10 A.m. the Hall was empty, and the four Members and I were aboard what Pirolo insisted on