"And thankful to be so!" muttered the elder traveller. "Beaten we shall be without a doubt. It's a comfort to know it won't be Beaten without the B! My dear boy, just look at the peacocks!"
They were now walking between two unbroken lines of those gorgeous birds, each held in check, by means of a golden collar and chain, by a black slave, who stood well behind, so as not to interrupt the view of the glittering tail, with its network of rustling feathers and its hundred eyes.
The Governor smiled proudly. "In your honour," he said, "Her Radiancy has ordered up ten thousand additional peacocks. She will, no doubt, decorate you, before you go, with the usual Star and Feathers."
"It'll be Star without the S!" faltered one of his hearers.
"Come, come! Don't lose heart!" said the other. "All this is full of charm for me."
"You are young, Norman," sighed his father; "young and light-hearted. For me, it is Charm without the C."
"The old one is sad," the Governor remarked with some anxiety. "He has, without doubt, effected some fearful crime?"
"But I haven't!" the poor old gentleman hastily exclaimed. "Tell him I haven't, Norman!"
"He has not, as yet," Norman gently explained. And the Governor repeated, in a satisfied tone, "Not as yet."
"Yours is a wondrous country!" the Governor resumed, after a pause. "Now here is a letter from a friend of mine, a merchant, in London. He and his brother went there a year ago, with a thousand pounds apiece; and on New-Year's-day they had sixty thousand pounds between them!"