“You see that gentleman there—the one ordering everybody about and making so much noise? Take your frog to him, tell him it is a ten-shilling frog, and he will probably buy it on the spot.”
But this frog vendor knew the Model Man from experience. He evidently had no inclination to attempt any business with him.
“Dat gem’man no buy nuffing, sar. He berry sharp wid me ’fore to-day.”
"a full-bodied gentleman."
Indeed, the near presence of the Model Man discouraged my friend to such an extent that he presently withdrew. I told his enemy afterwards, and the Model Man said:
“Offer his beastly frogs to ME! If he had dared to, I should have pitched him into the sea, stock and all. I did once, when he began bothering people to buy things they had no wish for.”
“Ah,” I said, “doubtless he alluded to that circumstance when he told me you had been sharp with him before to-day.”
Among the passengers who joined us at Dominica was an old friend, an ample, full-bodied, admirable gentleman who travelled from England with us, and found the ocean extremely monotonous and trying upon the voyage out. The same trouble still dogged his footsteps. He came aboard quite wild and haggard, and declared the universal and appalling lack of variety was telling upon his health.
“Just think of it,” he said, “wherever you turn, nothing but negroes and cocoanut palms, cocoanut palms and negroes. Every place is exactly like the last; every palm tree exactly like every other; every negro identical with the rest. I never saw such a monotonous set of islands in my life.”