The Man Who Would be King

The narrator of the story is a British journalist in 19th Century India—Kipling himself, in all but name. Whilst on a tour of some Indian native states he meets two scruffy adventurers, Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan. Softened by their stories, he agrees to help them in a minor errand, but later he regrets this and informs the authorities about them—preventing them from blackmailing a minor rajah. A few months later the pair appear at his newspaper office in Lahore.