Apropos of medicine, however, an odd thing happened. Féng Hou at first was not always good; indeed she was sometimes extremely naughty; and a little castigating seemed needful. A letter therefore was dispatched to London, to a provider of quaint necessaries, asking that some attractive little switch, worthy of such a creature, might be supplied. It came at once—the most delicate and radiant of rods, with a note saying that it was something of a curiosity, being pure rhinoceros horn. So we have one of the ingredients of one of the prescriptions after all! Physic indeed.
Five Characters
I.—The Kind Red Lioness
I will admit that my head ached and I looked tired; but I was not so depressed as all that. None the less she thought I was, and being a good soul she did what she could to help me, and since I knew her to be a good soul doing all that she could to help me, I had to acquiesce.
“Let me bring you something to cheer you up,” she said. “Of course it’s lonely staying in a country inn all by yourself. I know it must be. But I’ve got something that’ll make you laugh. I’ll fetch it in.”
I feared the worst as Mrs. Tally hastened away; and I knew the worst when she returned bearing the Visitors’ Book.
“There,” she said, “I often have a good laugh over that of an evening. Such funny bits there are in it. Some of the gentlemen we get here are such wags. Look at this”—and she placed her fat finger on a drawing of a young man in a straw hat, leaning against the bar while he blew kisses to an enormous figure behind it.
“That’s me,” she said, pointing to the enormous figure. “I remember that young gentleman so well. He came with two others, on bicycles, and they stayed from Saturday to Monday. So bright they were, and so full of jokes. See what he wrote underneath.”
I read: “Dook Snook, Lord Bob, and the Hon. Billy came and saw and were conquered—to Tally!”