Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/68

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54
PAGETT, M. P.

April opened with punkahs, coolies, and prickly-heat,—
Pagett was dear to mosquitoes, sandflies found him a treat.
He grew speckled and lumpy—hammered, I grieve to say,
Aryan brothers who fanned him, in an illiberal way.


May set in with a dust-storm,—Pagett went down with the sun.
All the delights of the season tickled him one by one.
Imprimis—ten days' "liver"—due to his drinking beer;
Later, a dose of fever—slight, but he called it severe.


Dysent'ry touched him in June, after the Chota Bursat
Lowered his portly person—made him yearn to depart.
He didn't call me a "Brahmin," or "bloated," or "overpaid,"
But seemed to think it a wonder that any one ever stayed.