They told him how to save time in getting across India, and he gave them a list of Places in China and Japan that might be dodged to advantage.
Year after year in the months of March and April they continued on their tedious Way through the burning Tropics.
Sometimes they came to a discouraged belief that the World was one bluey expanse, disturbed by Flying Fish.
Then they would spend weary Ages along the avenues of white Lime-Kilns, looking at Countless millions of hungry Brunettes in fluttering Nighties.
Their principal Occupation, when not setting down Expressions of Delight on the Post-Cards, was to study Time-Tables and cable ahead for Reservations.
The Invalid's one desire was to get home and take a regular Bath before being laid out.
Hong Kong pleased them exceedingly because they learned, by consulting
Mr. Mercator's Projection, that they were on the Home Stretch and, with
Luck in their favor, might live to see another Piece of Huckleberry Pie.
Japan they liked best of all. At Yokohama they received a bundle of Dailies only six weeks old, giving full Particulars of a Wedding and telling who was about to run for Mayor.
As soon as they were on the Pacific and headed for a refined Vaudeville Show, they began to recover the brave Spirit of Travel and blow about what they had seen.
The Towns and Temples and Tombs and Treasures of Art were all jumbled together, but, by daily references to Baedeker and Murray, they were enabled to find out where they had been and what they had seen with their own eyes and how it impressed them at the time.