An Epicure.
"Oh, George, I'm ashamed of you—rubbing your lips like that, after that dear little French girl has given you a kiss!"
"I'm not rubbing it out, mammy—I'm rubbing it in!"
A COWES WEEK EXPERIENCE
Monday.—Dear old Bluewater—what a good fellow he is!—asks me to join his yacht, the Sudden Jerk, for Cowes week. Never been yachting before.
Tuesday.—Arrive Ryde Pier, correctly (I hope) "got up"; blue serge, large brass anchor buttons, and peaked cap. Fancy Bluewater rather surprised to see how au fait I am at nautical dress. "Ah! my dear fellow, delighted to see you. Come along; the gig is lying alongside the steps. One of the hands" (why "hands"?) "shall look to your traps." We scramble into gig and are rowed out to 50-ton yawl. Climb up side. Bluewater says, "Come below. Take care—two steps down, then turn round and—— Oh! by Jove! what a crack you've caught your head. Never mind, old boy, you'll soon get accustomed to it." Devoutly hope I shall not get accustomed to knocking my head. Arrive at foot of "companion" (why "companion"?) stairs. Bluewater pulls aside curtains and says, "There you are!" Reply, "Oh! yes, there I am. Er—is—do you lie on the shelf—oh! berth, is it!—beg pardon—or underneath it?" He explains. "You'll find it very jolly, you know; you can lie in your bunk, and look right up the companion to the sky above." "Oh! awfully jolly," I say. We repair on deck. Get under weigh to run down to Cowes. Dear old Bluewater very active. Pulls at ropes and things, shouting "leggo-your-spinach-and-broom,"[A] and other unintelligible war-cries. Stagger across deck. Breeze very fresh. "Lee oh!" shouts Bluewater; "mind the broom!"—or it might have been boom—and next moment am knocked flat on my back by enormous pole.