"Very sorry, Sir; But I'm afraid I've made a small cut on your chin."
"Ah! It must have been a sharp patch on the razor."
THE COLONEL TALKS.
The great hunter and explorer received us with profound affability. Thinner he may be, but his terrible privations in the perilous back blocks of Brazil have left his dazzling bonzoline smile unharmed. Every one of the powerful two-and-thirty extended a separate welcome.
"Sit right down," he said.
We sat right down.
"Say, Colonel," we began in the vernacular, "tell us about the river. Some river, ain't it?"
"You are right, Sir," he replied. "It's a river. The Thames, according to your great statesman, Colonel Burns, is 'liquid history;' my river is——"
"According to Savage Landor," we interrupted, "'liquid mystery.'"