This collection, appearing in 1909 and drawing on stories and articles that Kipling had written for various Indian papers in the 80s and early 90s, seems to have been essentially a pirated work, brought out by its American publisher without Kipling's consent. There are a couple of very good things in it, like "Griffiths the safe man" and "A fallen idol", but on the whole you can see why Kipling hadn't bothered to collect these pieces for book publication. In particular, the "American" stories — all of them second-rate O. Henry pastiches — are best forgotten.
There is some interest in the articles written for Indian publication whilst Kipling, lonely and homesick, was trying to find his feet as a writer in London. There's a lot of whingeing about fog, smoke, and the general lack of virility of the London literary scene, but in between there are also a few perceptive or entertaining comments. I particularly enjoyed "My great and only", in which he describes the experience of writing a successful music-hall song lyric. In the course of this piece he "quotes" a stanza of Marie-Lloyd-style double entendre about candles and broom-handles to "demonstrate" to his readers how free the English music-hall is from all trace of vulgarity. There doesn't seem to be any trace of these lines elsewhere, so he almost certainly made them up himself, trusting that only his most dirty-minded readers would get the point, and they wouldn't explain it to their wives and servants... ( )