CHAPTER XIII.
A few hours later, I was honoured by a most embarrassing request. I say honoured, because the request was the outcome of a desire to pay due attention to a visitor who possessed a good passport to New Amazonian favour in that she took an intelligent interest in her surroundings. If I add that my diminutive stature, curious appearance, and mysterious mode of arrival had somewhat tickled the national vein of curiosity, I shall not be far wrong.
The service required of me was to make a public speech, in which I was asked to give a slight account of the manners and customs of my own country, as well as the best explanation I could give of my journey hither, and my mode of eluding the coastguard. No doubt many of my readers may think that such a request would not have embarrassed them. They could have talked glibly enough, and would have felt quite comfortable when addressing the audience which intended to listen to my feeble utterances.
As for giving a succinct account of the journey, they could have invented on the spot so marvellous a recital as would have excited the wonderment of every New Amazonian. I am quite willing to admit that to these clever individuals the forthcoming meeting would have presented no terrors. But they may possibly comprehend my feelings when I tell them that I had never lectured, or made a speech before a large audience in my life. And yet, here was I expected to pose my insignificant self upon a public platform, and address a crowded meeting at an hour’s notice, conscious all the time that thousands of people were criticising my odd appearance and old-fashioned diction.
It certainly was no small ordeal for me to face, and I am not at all sure that my trepidation was lessened by the information that the Honourable Augustus was also going to give a recital of his adventures. To be honest, I was not proud of his ability, and I was rather afraid lest he should allow himself to be carried away by his insular, as well as by his masculine conceit, and bring ridicule upon both of us. For, although we knew nothing of each other’s antecedents, it was inevitable that we should be coupled together in the minds of New Amazonians, who had never met with our like before.
Myra was solicitous that I should look my very best, and save for the sash, which aliens were not permitted to wear, I was as gay as any unofficial native who would be present. My escort was a large one. It seemed to me that all the college was going, and long before we entered the magnificent Hall of Discussion, in which I was to pose as one of the central figures, I had come to the conclusion that everybody else in Andersonia was bound for the same place.
“I do believe that the Hall is going to prove too small to-night,” remarked Myra, as we gained the entrance, where a large crowd was endeavouring to obtain an early turn at the automatic gate which permitted none but presentees of a certain coin of the realm to obtain access to the auditorium.
Myself and escort passed up a grand staircase, and presently reached the platform, where my own appearance proved the signal for a loud and long-continued burst of applause, which was presently renewed when Mr. Fitz-Musicus was ushered on to the platform.
He wasn’t nervous. I could see that at a glance. I never saw anyone look around on a vast multitude of people with such a superlatively ridiculous affectation of arrogance and accentuated self-esteem, and a curious conviction suddenly assailed me. The Honourable Augustus was not of the sort of material that can ever be brought to eat humble pie, under any circumstances whatever. His experiences in this marvellous country only served to emphasize his national prejudices, and I could see that, so far from acknowledging native superiority, he was bent upon making the erstwhile proud boast that he was “a true born Englishman.”
A quick, compassionate glance which he threw at me also revealed the fact that he rather pitied me for the feminine ignorance and incompetence which I was doomed to display ere long. But, somehow, the irritation which his presence invariably aroused in me dispelled the feeling of tremour with which I had hitherto been possessed, and I defiantly resolved that whatever Mr. Fitz-Musicus himself might think upon the subject, our audience should not vote my oratorical powers so vastly inferior to his.