Rudyard Kipling 85 lige “No, of course you never did. Good heavens! look at the sea.” “Why, it’s the same as ever!” said Maisie. Torpenhow had gathered from Mr. Beeton that Dick, properly dressed and shaved, had left the house at half-past eight in the morning with a traveling-rug over his arm. The Nilghai rolled in at mid-day for chess and polite conversation. “It's worse than anything I imagined,” said Torpenhow. “Oh, the everlasting Dick, I suppose! You fuss over him like a hen with one chick. Let him run riot if he thinks it'll amuse him. You can whip a young pup off feather, but you can’t whip a young man.” “It isn’t a woman. It’s one woman; and it’s a girl.” “Where’s your proof?” “He got up and went out at eight this morning, — got up in the middle of the night, by Jove! a thing he never does except when he’s on service. Even then, remember, we had to kick him out of his blankets before the fight began at El-Maghrib. It’s disgusting.” “It looks odd; but maybe he’s decided to buy a horse at last. He might get up for that, mightn’t he?” “Buy a blazing wheelbarrow! He’d have told us if there was a horse in the wind. It’s a girl.” “Don’t be certain. Perhaps it’s only a married woman.” “Dick has some sense of humor, if you haven’t. Who gets up in the gray dawn to call on another man’s wife? It’s a girl.” “Let it be a girl, then. She may teach him that there's somebody else in the world besides himself.” “She'll spoil his hand. She’ll waste his time, and she'll marry him, and ruin his work forever. He’ll be a respectable married man before we can stop him, and