The story of the Gadsbys

Name: The story of the Gadsbys
Author: Rudyard Kipling

by Rudyard Kipling

Pages: about 91
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 1.7 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 55 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

Poor Dear Mamma The World Without The Tents of Kedar With Any Amazement The Garden of Eden Fatima The Valley of the Shadow The Swelling of Jordan
DEAR MAFFLIN,--You will remember that I wrote this story as an Awful Warning. None the less you have seen fit to disregard it and have followed Gadsby's example--as I betted you would. I acknowledge that you paid the money at once, but you have prejudiced the mind of Mrs. Mafflin against myself, for though I am almost the only respectable friend of your bachelor days, she has been darwaza band to me throughout the season. Further, she caused you to invite me to dinner at the Club, where you called me “a wild ass of the desert,” and went home at half-past ten, after discoursing for twenty minutes on the responsibilities of housekeeping. You now drive a mail-phaeton and sit under a Church of England clergyman. I am not angry, Jack. It is your kismet, as it was Gaddy's, and his kismet who can avoid? Do not think that I am moved by a spirit of revenge as I write, thus publicly, that you and you alone are responsible for this book. In other and more expansive days, when you could look at a magnum without flushing and at a cheroot without turning white, you supplied me with most of the material. Take it back again--would that I could have preserved your fatherless speech in the telling--take it back, and by your slippered hearth read it to the late Miss Deercourt. She will not be any the more willing to receive my cards, but she will admire you immensely, and you, I feel sure, will love me. You may even invite me to another very bad dinner--at the Club, which, as you and your wife know, is a safe neutral ground for the entertainment of wild asses. Then, my very dear hypocrite, we shall be quits.

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The story of the Gadsbys

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