A sailing-boat to circumvent it—
“The sounding of that Gaelic ‘och’
Beats me!” said Tottles (and he meant it).
Here, with one of those convulsive starts that wake one up in the very act of dropping off to sleep, I became conscious that the deep musical tones that thrilled me did not belong to Mein Herr, but to the French Count. The old man was still conning the manuscript.
“I beg your pardon for keeping you waiting!” he said. “I was just making sure that I knew the English for all the words. I am quite ready now.” And he read me the following Legend:—
“In a city that stands in the very centre of Africa, and is rarely visited by the casual tourist, the people had always bought eggs—a daily necessary in a climate where egg-flip was the usual diet—from a Merchant who came to their gates once a week. And the people always bid wildly against each other: so there was quite a lively auction every time the Merchant came, and the last egg in his basket used to fetch the value of two or three camels, or thereabouts. And eggs got dearer every week. And still they drank their egg-flip, and wondered where all their money went to.
THE EGG-MERCHANT
“And there came a day when they put their heads together. And they understood what donkeys they had been.
“And next day, when the Merchant came, only one Man went forth. And he said ‘Oh, thou of the hook-nose and the goggle-eyes, thou of the measureless beard, how much for that lot of eggs?’