“Pure fun,” answered he, “nothing else under the sun. You see, it happened in this way:—I was sitting quietly and swinging in a cedar of Lebanon, on the very summit of that mountain, when suddenly, feeling a little warm, I took a brisk dive into the Mediterranean. Now I was careless, and got going obliquely, and with the force of such a dive I could not come up near Sicily, as I had intended, but I went clean under Africa, and came out at the Cape of Good Hope, and as Fortune would have it, just as this good ship was passing. So I sprang over the side, and offered the crew to treat all round if they would tell me where I started from. But I suppose they had just been piped to grog, for not a man stirred, except your friend yonder, and he only kept on stirring.”
“Are you going far?” I asked.
The cavalry officer looked a little disturbed. “I cannot precisely tell,” answered he, “in fact, I wish I could;” and he glanced round nervously at the strange company.
“If you should come our way, Prue and I will be very glad to see you,” said I, “and I can promise you a warm welcome from the children.”
“Many thanks,” said the officer,—and handed me his card, upon which I read, Le Baron Munchausen.
“I beg your pardon,” said a low voice at my side; and, turning, I saw one of the most constant smokers—a very old man—“I beg your pardon, but can you tell me where I came from?”
“I am sorry to say I cannot,” answered I, as I surveyed a man with a very bewildered and wrinkled face, who seemed to be intently looking for something.
“Nor where I am going?”
I replied that it was equally impossible. He mused a few moments, and then said slowly, “Do you know, it is a very strange thing that I have not found anybody who can answer me either of those questions. And yet I must have come from somewhere,” said he, speculatively—“yes, and I must be going somewhere, and I should really like to know something about it.”
“I observe,” said I, “that you smoke a good deal, and perhaps you find tobacco clouds your brain a little.”