I really think I shall take to Guide-book writing. Grandolph's Guides would be immensely popular. I'm sure I can do it—for upon my word I can do a'most anything if I only buckle to. By the way, 'Buckle' suggests history. Can go in for "making history" when I've done this work. WILLIAMS—not MONTAGU the Magistrate—(good title this for something)—but my friend the Companionable Captain —— is at work; when he has done, he reads out a few descriptive paragraphs for my approbation, or the contrary. When I nod it means that I like it; when I don't nod, he has to wait till I do. I generally begin nodding about the middle of the first paragraph.
"Well," says he, the other day, quite suddenly, "I'm glad you like it all so much."
"Like all what?" I exclaimed, blowing the cigar-ash off my pyjamas, and wondering to myself how I could have been so absorbed in his reading aloud as to have let my half-smoked havannah tumble on to the floor.
"Why, all I've been reading to you for the last hour and a half," returned the Captain, apparently somewhat annoyed; peppery chap, the Captain,—'Curried' Captain when on board Sir DONALD's boat,—but to resume. Says the Curried Captain, still a bit annoyed, "You passed all the paragraphs, one after the other, and whenever I stopped to ask you how you liked it, you nodded."
I didn't like to hurt the gallant scribe's feelings, but the fact is that he, as a reader, has a very soothing-syrupy tone and, I fancy, that in less than a quarter of an hour, judging by the moiety of my cigar. I must have fallen fast asleep.
"That's posted, is it?" I ask, evading further explanation. "It is," he answers. "But I've got another lot—"
"Good!" I interrupt him, rather abruptly I own, but, from experience I say it, if I don't take myself when in the humour—'on the hop,' so to speak, as they said of the scarabæus in Kent—(trust me for natural history and plenty of it)—I'm no use at all. Now at this moment I am wide awake, a giant refreshed; so I light another fragrant weed, and call for another cool drink, as I haven't the smallest idea what became of the one I ordered when the Gallant Graphist commenced reading; I rather suspect he 'put it to his lips when so dispoged,' and that, in this instance also, he mistook my nod for silent but emphatic encouragement.
"Now," I say to the Amiable Amanuensis and Adaptable Author, "you read your stuff aloud with emphasis and discretion, and I'll chuck in the ornamental part. Excuse me, that's my drink," I say, with an emphasis on the possessive pronoun, for the Soldierly Scribe, in a moment of absorption, was about to apply that process to my liquor. He apologises handsomely, and commences his recital. In the absence of a gong,—one ought never to travel without a gong,—I whack the tea-tray with a paper-knife. "All in to begin!"
"The mail train," &c., &c. I make my notes, and remark that MURRAY and BRADSHAW lost a great chance in not having long ago secured the services of the Corresponding Captain. "The railroad passes through mountain scenery of exceptional," &c., &c. BRADSHAW and MURRAY, not to mention BAEDEKER and BLACK, absolutely not in it with the Wandering Warrior. "About thirty miles from Cape Town"—