I am always thinking that I never tasted coffee till that day; I am always thinking of the crisp and steaming rolls, ored over with the molten gold that hinted of the clover-fields, and the bees that had not yet permitted the honey of the bloom and the white blood of the stalk to be divorced; I am always thinking that the young and tender pullet we happy three discussed was a near and dear relative of the gay patrician rooster that I first caught peering so inquisitively in at the kitchen door; and I am always—­ always thinking of “The Nest-egg.”

WEE WILLIE WINKIE

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

As the sub-title, “An Officer and a Gentleman,” indicates, this is a story of character.  Mr. Kipling, like Robert Louis Stevenson, James Whitcomb Riley, and Eugene Field, has carried into his maturity an imperishable youth of spirit which makes him an interpreter of children.  Here he has shown what our Anglo-Saxon ideals—­honor, obedience, and reverence for woman—­mean to a little child.

WEE WILLIE WINKIE

“An officer and A gentleman.”

[Footnote:  From “Under the Deodars,” by Rudyard Kipling.  Copyright, 1899, by Rudyard Kipling.  Reprinted by special permission of Doubleday, Page and Company.]

His full name was Percival William Williams, but he picked up the other name in a nursery-book, and that was the end of the christened titles.  His mother’s ayah called him Willie-Baba, but as he never paid the faintest attention to anything that the ayah said, her wisdom did not help matters.

His father was the Colonel of the 195th, and as soon as Wee Willie Winkie was old enough to understand what Military Discipline meant, Colonel Williams put him under it.  There was no other way of managing the child.  When he was good for a week, he drew good-conduct pay; and when he was bad, he was deprived of his good-conduct stripe.  Generally he was bad, for India offers many chances of going wrong to little six-year-olds.

Children resent familiarity from strangers, and Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular child.  Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to thaw.  He accepted Brandis, a subaltern of the 195th, on sight.  Brandis was having tea at the Colonel’s, and Wee Willie Winkie entered strong in the possession of a good-conduct badge won for not chasing the hens round the compound.  He regarded Brandis with gravity for at least ten minutes, and then delivered himself of his opinion.

“I like you,” said he slowly, getting off his chair and coming over to Brandis.  “I like you.  I shall call you Coppy, because of your hair.  Do you mind being called Coppy?  It is because of ye hair, you know.”