'Tell it as a lie.'

'Fiction?' This with the full-blooded disgust of a journalist for the
illegitimate branch of the profession.

'You can call it that if you like. I shall call it a lie.'

And a lie it has become; for Truth is a naked lady, and if by
accident she is drawn up from the bottom of the sea, it behoves a
gentleman either to give her a print petticoat or to turn his face to
the wall and vow that he did not see.




MOWGLI'S BROTHERS

Now Chil the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free--
The herds are shut in byre and hut
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tush and claw.
Oh hear the call!--Good hunting all
That keep the Jungle Law!

_Night-Song in the Jungle_.

It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when