Black as the raven his garb, and his heresies jettier
still—
Hinting that Railways required lifetimes of study
and knowledge—
Never clanked sword by his side—Vauban
he knew not nor drill—
Nor was his name on the list of the men who had passed
through the “College.”
Wherefore the Little Tin Gods harried their little
tin souls,
Seeing he came not from Chatham, jingled no spurs
at his heels,
Knowing that, nevertheless, was he first on the Government
rolls
For the billet of “Railway Instructor to Little
Tin Gods on Wheels.”
Letters not seldom they wrote him, “having the
honour to state,”
It would be better for all men if he were laid on
the shelf.
Much would accrue to his bank-book, an he consented
to wait
Until the Little Tin Gods built him a berth for himself,
“Special, well paid, and exempt from the Law
of the Fifty and Five,
Even to Ninety and Nine”—these were
the terms of the pact:
Thus did the Little Tin Gods (long may Their Highnesses
thrive!)
Silence his mouth with rupees, keeping their Circle
intact;
Appointing a Colonel from Chatham who managed the
Bhamo State Line
(The which was one mile and one furlong—a
guaranteed twenty-inch gauge),
So Exeter Battleby Tring consented his claims to resign,
And died, on four thousand a month, in the ninetieth
year of his age!
We have another viceroy now,—those days
are dead and done
Of Delilah Aberyswith and depraved Ulysses Gunne.
Delilah Aberyswith was a lady—not too young—
With a perfect taste in dresses and a badly-bitted
tongue,
With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst
for praise,
And a little house in Simla in the Prehistoric Days.
By reason of her marriage to a gentleman in power,
Delilah was acquainted with the gossip of the hour;
And many little secrets, of the half-official kind,
Were whispered to Delilah, and she bore them all in
mind.
She patronized extensively a man, Ulysses Gunne,
Whose mode of earning money was a low and shameful
one.
He wrote for certain papers, which, as everybody knows,
Is worse than serving in a shop or scaring off the
crows.
He praised her “queenly beauty” first;
and, later on, he hinted
At the “vastness of her intellect” with
compliment unstinted.
He went with her a-riding, and his love for her was
such
That he lent her all his horses and—she
galled them very much.
One day, they brewed a secret of a fine financial
sort;
It related to Appointments, to a Man and a Report.
’Twas almost worth the keeping,—only
seven people knew it—
And Gunne rose up to seek the truth and patiently
pursue it.
It was a Viceroy’s Secret, but—perhaps
the wine was red—
Perhaps an Aged Councillor had lost his aged head—
Perhaps Delilah’s eyes were bright—Delilah’s
whispers sweet—
The Aged Member told her what ’twere treason
to repeat.
