Rudyard Kipling 123 the other way — to the Ushant light, for instance,” said the Nilghai. “Flinging his arms about like a mad windmill,” said Torpenhow. “Give us something else, Nilghai. You’re in fine fog-horn form tonight.” “Give us the “Ganges Pilot’; you sang that in the square the night before El-Maghrib. By the way, I wonder how many of the chorus are alive tonight,” said Dick. Torpenhow considered for a minute. “By Jove! I believe only you and I. Raynor, Vicery, and Deenes — all dead; Vincent caught smallpox in Cairo, carried it here and died of it. Yes, only you and I and the Nilghai.” “Umph! And yet the men here who’ve done their work in a well-warmed studio all their lives, with a policeman at each corner, say that I charge too much for my pictures.” “They are buying your work, not your insurance policies, dear child,” said the Nilghai. “I gambled with one to get at the other. Don’t preach. Go on with the ‘Pilot.’ Where in the world did you get that song?” “On a tombstone,” said the Nilghai. “On a tombstone in a distant land. I made it an accompaniment with heaps of base chords.” “Oh, Vanity! Begin.” And the Nilghai began — “I have slipped my cable, messmates, I’m drifting down with the tide, I have my sailing orders, while yet an anchor ride. And never on fair June morning have I put out to sea With clearer conscience or better hope, or a heart more light and free. ‘Shoulder to shoulder, Joe, my boy, into the crowd like a wedge Strike with the hangers, messmates, but do not cut with the edge.’