theatre.  Her conversation is delightful, but it belongs to nobody.  It does not even belong to her author.  Mrs Hawksbee talks as all well-dressed women talk in the best books.  She does it with a volubility and resourcefulness which almost disguises the fact that she lives only by hanging desperately to the end of her author’s pen; but she cannot deceive us always.  Mr Kipling does not really believe in Mrs Hawksbee.  He has no real sympathy or knowledge of the social undercrust where the tangle of three is a constant theme.  The talk of Mrs Hawksbee and her circle is derived.  Its conduct is fashionable light comedy in an Indian setting.

Simla really does not deserve to be known outside the Indian Empire.  It is a comparatively cool place whither Indian soldier and civilians send their wives in the hot weather and whither they retire themselves under medical advice.  It is not unlike any other warm and idle city of rest where there is every kind of expensive amusement provided for a migratory population.  Mr Kipling has failed to make Simla interesting, because Simla is Biarritz and Monte Carlo or any place which in fiction is frequented by people who behave naughtily and enjoy themselves, and in real life is frequented by the upper middle classes mechanically passing the time.  Mr Kipling’s ingenious pretences regarding Simla are amusing, but they cannot long conceal from his readers that these tales, apart from literary exhibition, were really not worth the telling.  Mr Kipling pretends, of course, even at twenty-four, to know of all that passes between women unlacing after a ball; but Mr Kipling’s pretended omniscience is part of his literary method, and he does not quite carry it off in the Simla tales.  He gives us not Simla or any place under the sun, but a sparkling stage version of Simla—­all dancing and delight, a little intrigue, a touch of sentiment, patches of excellent fun, and now and then a streak of Indian mystery.  But Mr Kipling’s heart is not really in this business.  His Simla tales will not endure, and they have been given too much prominence in the popular idea of his work.  They are not plain tales, but tales very artfully coloured.  They fall far short of the standard to which Mr Kipling has raised the English short story.  Yet even here we may note the skill with which the author has concealed his failure.  Mrs Hawksbee may be taken as a symbol of the distinction between the work of an inspired author and the work of an author playing with his tools.  Mr Kipling of The Jungle Books and The Day’s Work is an inspired author.  Mr Kipling of the Simla tales, on the other hand, is simply concerned to show that he can work a conventional formula of the day as well as any man; that he can redeem the formula with individual touches beyond the reach of most; and can enliven it with impudent pretences which please by virtue of their being utterly preposterous.  Take, for example, the pretence that Mrs Hawksbee