Mrs. Hauksbee was sometimes nice to her own sex. Here is a story to prove this; and you can believe just as much as ever you please.
(It is necessary to say how Mrs. Hauksbee can be 'nice', after the story "Three and - an Extra" which introduced her to Kipling's readers as a woman predatory on another's husband.)
In The Rescue of Pluffles, Pluffles is a subaltern (2nd Lieutenant) in a regiment known (for a concealing nickname) 'The Unmentionables'. He is callow, and 'trusts his own judgement': and, at 24, becomes "bound hand and foot to Mrs. Reiver's 'rickshaw wheels" - that is a hyperbolic way of saying that she dominates him so that he is at her whim. Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Reiver hate each other "fervently." Mrs. Hauksbee learns that Pluffles has left a fiancée at home in England. She fights Mrs. Reiver in "the Seven Weeks' War", and finally wins by talking to him "after the manner of a mother". Pluffles and his fiancée are married. He leaves the army and returns to lead a happy life farming in England. "He would have come to extreme grief in India".
The story's last paragraph:
For these reasons, if anyone says anything more than usually nasty about Mrs. Hauksbee, tell him the story of the Rescue of Pluffles.
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
All quotations in this article have been taken from the Uniform Edition of Plain Tales from the Hills published by Macmillan & Co., Limited in London in 1899. The text is that of the third edition (1890), and the author of the article has used his own copy of the 1923 reprint. Further comment, including page-by-page notes, can be found on the Kipling Society's website, at .
Plain Tales from the Hills is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "eight-and-twenty", according to Kipling's Preface, were initially published in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, Punjab, British India between November 1886 and June 1887. "The remaining tales are, more or less, new."
"Three and – an Extra" is the earliest appearance in Kipling's books of the character Mrs. Hauksbee. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on November 17, 1886, and first in book form in Plain Tales from the Hills, in 1888. It reports a defeat of "the clever, witty, brilliant and sparkling" Mrs. Hauksbee by Mrs. Cusack-Bremmil - in the former's predatory pursuit of Mr. Cusack-Bremmil.
Mrs. Hauksbee is a fictional character in many short stories by Rudyard Kipling. In the first, "Three and - an Extra", she is introduced as:
Mrs Hauksbee appeared on the horizon; and where she existed was fair chance of trouble. At Simla her by-name was the 'Stormy Petrel'. She had won that title five times to my certain knowledge.... She was clever, witty, brilliant, and sparkling beyond most of her kind; but possessed of many devils of malice and mischievousness. She could be nice, though, even to her own sex. But that is another story.
"Miss Youghal's Sais" is a short story in Rudyard Kipling's collection Plain Tales from the Hills (1888). It is the first appearance in book form of the fictional character Strickland.
"The Three Musketeers" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling which introduces three fictional British soldiers serving in India in the later nineteenth century: the privates Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris. These characters appear in many early Kipling stories. "The Three Musketeers" was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 11 March 1887. It appeared in book form in Plain Tales from the Hills (1888).
"False Dawn" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.
"The Other Man" is a short story by the British writer Rudyard Kipling, first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 13 November 1886, in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.
"Lispeth" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 29 November 1886; its first appearance in book form was in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and it later appeared in subsequent editions of that collection. The tale is an interesting example of Kipling's attitudes to different races and cultures, which is less simple than many accounts of his beliefs allow.
"Thrown Away" is a short story by British author Rudyard Kipling. It was published in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills (1888), and in subsequent editions of that collection.
"Yoked with an Unbeliever" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on December 7, 1886, and in book form in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888. It also appears in subsequent editions of that collection.
"Cupid's Arrows" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.
The phrase 'watches of the night' has been used since at least the Book of Mishna: "watches of the night": the night-time; watch originally each of the three or four periods of time, during which a watch or guard was kept, into which the night was divided by the Jews and Romans". The phrase occurs several places in the Old Testament and it is suggested in the New Testament. Also found in the Dhammapada, chapter 12 (Attavaggo).
"Consequences" is the title of a short story by Rudyard Kipling, first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on December 9, 1886; and first in book form in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills (1888), and in subsequent editions of that collection.
"The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on April 28, 1887, and first in book form in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.
The Rudyard Kipling story "Kidnapped" was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on March 21, 1887, in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills (1888), and in subsequent editions of that collection. outline Kipling starts by announcing, "We [British] are a high-caste and enlightened race", but suggesting that arranged marriages are preferable to Western notions of love matches. "The Hindu notion - which is the Continental notion, which is the aboriginal notion - is sound", he writes. The story that follows is designed to illustrate this.
"The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 23 November 1886 in book form, in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. The story, published when Kipling was not quite 21 years old, is a well-crafted piece of writing about an essentially schoolboy version of schadenfreude - sheer pleasure, in this case, at seeing someone 'get his comeuppance' - with an element of slapstick.
"In the House of Suddhoo" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. The story was published in the Civil and Military Gazette on April 30, 1886 under the title "Section 420, I.P.C.". Its first appearance in book form was in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888. It was the third of the stories that appear in that collection to be written
"His Wedded Wife" by Rudyard Kipling ...was published in the Civil and Military Gazette on February 25, 1887, and in book form in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. It is one of the short stories that J. M. S. Tompkins classifies as a tale of 'revenge', but it has elements of those classified as 'farce'.
Under the Deodars is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling.
The Rudyard Kipling story "The Broken-Link Handicap" was first published in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.
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