KIPPS
"I've taken my fun where I've found it;
I've rogued and I've ranged in my time;
I've 'ad my picking of sweet'earts,
An' four of the lot was Prime."
(These things, I say, affect the moral standards of the best of us.)
"I'd have liked to have written that," said Chitterlow. "That's Life, that is! But go and put it on the Stage, put even a bit of the Realities of Life on the Stage, and see what they'll do to you! Only Kipling could venture on a job like that. That Poem knocked me! I don't say Kipling hasn't knocked me before and since, but that was a Fair Knock Out. And yet you know—there's one thing in it. . . this:
"I've taken my fun where I've found it,
And now I must pay for my fun,
For the more you 'ave known o' the others,
The less will you settle to one———"
Well. In my case anyhow—I don't know how much that proves, seeing I'm exceptional in so many things and there's no good denying it—but so far as I'm concerned—I tell you two, but of course you needn't let it go any farther—I've been perfectly faithful to Muriel ever since I married her—ever since. . . . Not once. Not even by accident have I ever said or done anything in the slightest—" His little brown eye became pensive after this flattering intimacy and the gorgeous draperies of his abundant voice fell into graver folds. "I learned about women from 'er," he said impressively.
"Yes," said Walshingham, getting into the hinder
278
