TURNED DOWN KIPLING

Evening Star, Issue 19197, 13 March 1926, Page 2

TURNED DOWN KIPLING

COPY " TOO RAW ” HOW HE FOUND OUT HIS BLUNDER There is a man living who has the unique but unenviable distinction of being the only editor who “turned down ” Mr Rudyard Kipling. He is Air Francis L. H. Noble, who at the time of tho incident was the extremely youthful Sunday editor of a San Francisco newspaper. It was in 1839 that Kipling visited America on his way to England, which he had not seen since lie went out to India as a journalist at the age of sixteen. At this date his ‘ Plain Tales from tho Hills ’ and other stories which, once read, linger for ever to haunt tho memory, were popular from the Himalayas to Capo Comorin and from the Hooghli to Bombay. A few stray copies found their way to England and got talked about, but in tho United States Kipling’s name was utterly unknown. On the staff of the ’Frisco newspaper there was a very clever reporter by the name of Coe, who “did the hotels.” Daily prowling around the different hostelries, seeking unusual and queer guests, who might furnish good copy in tho shape of vivacious interviews, the odd name' of Rudyard Kipling caught his fancy, and ho promptly investigated the owner. FORTUNE’S INVITATION. Later in the day lie came to tire editor’s desk with a handful of pencilled sheets and a broad grin. “That’s a queer bird at the Palace,” bo said, “ from India. Says he’s a grand little newspaper man, all right., and has written this for the _ paper. Tho city editor doesn’t want it, and told mo to hand it to you. This Indian bird will take ten a column for it, and there’s about a column and a-balf of the stuff. MTint it? Fame and Fortune were wiping their feet on the editor’s doormat, but he failed to recognise either of them.

Tho matter which Coe gave Mr Noble was later published by Kipling, though greatly extended and toned down in his ‘ American Notes.’ Mr Noble read it over and observed : “He’s a cheerful sort of a liar, isn’t he? It’s pretty good stuff, though, and I guess I can use it, but he’ll take out one or two raw spots. He’s got our prominent citizens killing each other with revolvers on every street corner, using Bret Hart© dialect.” “He insists that not a line, word, or even a comma be altered or omitted, or else you can’t use it,” said Coe. “Can’t use it is right!” replied Mr Noble, and returned the article. Mr Noble is getting very tired of hearing how “the smart cub-editor” refused to publish the story, with embellishments that grow with every tclling. whenever old-time newspaper men of America got together and Kipling comes up for discussion someone gets up and says something like this: —■ “He was a fresh guy, just Harvard. Kipling him 1 The Reincarnation of Krishna Mulyaney ’ (or it may bo the ‘Strange Side of Morrowhie Jukes ’ or ‘ Tho Man Who Would bo King,’ it all depends on He narrator’s favorite story), and this ‘ dumb-bell ’ threw it back at Kipling and said: ‘Not in a thousand years, my boy; that Indian drool is too amateurish for the columns of my paper. What do yon think of that?” CLUB MEETING. So, after all these years Mr Nolle lias come forward with the real tnHi about tho matter. Ho asserts that the remarks in the article offered him could not be published verbatim, as they were “simply ridiculous to any han Franciscan of ordinary intelhge ice, and that Kipling greatly modified them in his ‘ American Notes.’ Nevertheless, he would like to have the chance of accepting-them over again.. At tho .time of the incident Mr Noble was a member of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco, and used to drop into the clubrooms in the small hours after tho paper went fo press There was almost always at the chib n little dark man. who smoked a perfectly villainous briar root pme ;Mid rarely opened his Ups, hut rstened eagerlv to all the conversation, No one knew his name, or over inquired it. Ho never told any stories himself, but was a very good listener. Mr Noble and the quiet little man were of about the same ago, and drifted a great deal into each other s company. “When ho and I vero alone,” said Mr Noble. “I found him one of the most insatiable questioners I ever ran across, a perfect interrogation point as it were, and his queries concerning America and Americans woro endless, divers, and wide inngiup;.” . . , . V>iit Ur Noble never inquired his friend's name, and mi tn rally did not connect him with tho , man whose “copy” lie had refused Mr Noble, thus relates how ho came to realise that he had made a blunder, REALISATION. “The night before Kipling left San Francisco,” lie says, __ Harry Biad\, the club librarian, and I met him m the library. He bad a little volume in his hand, which lie thrust out to Brady, saying: ‘ Here! I’d like to leave' this'for the Bohemian Chin if vnu care for it. 7 Then he turned and left the room, followed by tho librarian leaving the hook on "the tal-'e. “’it was the Indian edition of ‘Plain Tales from the Hills,’ and autoofrphed with the author’s name. Thus I learned that the man I had talked with so many times in the <hi brooms in the small 'hours of thy rnon.i_.ig. and the man whoso ‘ copy T had cditoiiiilh refused were one and the same, and that his name was Hudynrd Kipling. “I opened the book and f-gan to read. The rising sun peeped in at the windows before I finished tho .n-st s.-oiy. 1 went slowly out of the vacant club into the deserted street. “Then, and not until thou, .1 knew. I knew. I Knew. And Kipling was gone.”