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ACTIONS AND REACTIONS
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
CONTENTS
An Habitation Enforced
The Recall
Garm--a Hostage
The Power of the Dog
The Mother Hive
The Bees and the Flies
With the Night Mail
The Four Angels
A Deal in Cotton
The New Knighthood
The Puzzler
The Puzzler Little Foxes
Gallio's Song
The House Surgeon
The Rabbi's Song
ACTIONS AND REACTIONS
AN HABITATION ENFORCED
My friend, if cause doth wrest thee,
Ere folly hath much oppressed thee,
Far from acquaintance kest thee
Where country may digest thee . . .
Thank God that so hath blessed thee,
And sit down, Robin, and rest thee.
THOMAS TUSSER.
It came without warning, at the very hour his hand was outstretched to crumple the Holz and Gunsberg Combine. The New York doctors called it overwork, and he lay in a darkened room, one ankle crossed above the other, tongue pressed into palate, wondering whether the next brain-surge of prickly fires would drive his soul from all anchorages. At last they gave judgment. With care he might in two years return to the arena, but for the present he must go across the water and do no work whatever. He accepted the terms. It was capitulation; but the Combine that had shivered beneath his knife gave him all the honours of war: Gunsberg himself, full of condolences, came to the steamer and filled the Chapins' suite of cabins with overwhelming flower-works.
"Smilax," said George Chapin when he saw them. "Fitz is right. I'm dead; only I don't see why he left out the 'In Memoriam' on the ribbons!"
"Nonsense!" his wife ans