Published: Civil and Military Gazette, 4 May 1888.

Attribution: In Scrapbook 4 (28/4, p. 60).

Text: Civil and Military Gazette.

Notes: Late in 1909 the American publisher B. W. Dodge brought out an unauthorised collection of RK's early work under the title Abaft the Funnel. At RK's direction his American publisher, Doubleday, at once (December 1909) brought out an authorised edition of the same collection under the same title at a price of 19 cents, intended to undercut the sale of Dodge's edition. In January, 1910, RK's agent, A. P. Watt, sent to Doubleday a list of titles from RK's file of early work to be kept in Doubleday's safe ‘pending any further action on the part of Messrs Dodge or other pirates’ (1 January 1910: copy, Watt UNC 122:14). ‘A Day Off ‘ was among the titles on the list, but Dodge presented no ‘further action’, and thus ‘A Day Off ‘ did not appear in any authorized collection of RK's work.

Reprinted in ‘Turnovers’, ii, 1888, in the Martindell–Ballard pamphlets, and in Harbord, iv, 2032–5.

“‘And on the seventh thou shalt do no manner of work. Thou and thy servant.’ –

Kadir Buksh is that bath ready yet?” Body o’ me! I have slept till ten o'clock. That comes of one, two – no, four whiskey-pegs after dinner. But it has the great advantage of eating into the “long, hot Indian day.” In common decency one cannot go to bed again till ten. There still remain, therefore, twelve weary hours to kill. Outside, the sun has baked the roses brown, and the dust is whirling furiously down the garden paths. It has got into the morning tea, and the day opens auspiciously with the taste of gritty dust in my teeth. Decidedly, the weather is warming up, and gives one headaches – for those four pegs cannot account for the crisp and crawling sensation in the hair of the scalp, and the pain through the temples.

Now, in England, when a man rises on Sunday morning he looks forward to a day's pleasuring – by river, rail or road. Let me think – Loughton, Virginia Water, Datchet, Richmond, with something to eat at a place called the Star and Garter isn't it?