‘I suppose you’ll not be sorry to get home again, Muffin?’
‘Indeed, sir,’ he exclaimed, ‘I shall be most humbly thankful, I assure you.’
‘You’re an Englishman, aren’t you?’
‘Oh dear yes, quite English, sir. Born at ’ammersmith, sir.’
‘Then you ought to be very fond of the sea.’
‘I should be more partial to it, sir, I believe,’ said he, ‘if it was a river. I have a natural aversion to the hocean, sir. I can swim and I can row. I’ve pulled on the Serpentine, sir, and four years ago I made a voyage to the Continong as far as Cally, and found the water very hentertaining. But there’s so much hocean here, sir, that it’s alarming to think of. On a river, Mr. Monson, sir, one can never seem distant, but here—why, sir, if my mother’s ’ouse was in one of them stars, it couldn’t seem further off, and every day I suppose’ll make the distance greater.’
‘That you must expect,’ said I, turning with a notion of seeking Finn or Crimp.
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he said, ‘but could you tell me what them fires are that’s burning in the water?’
‘Phosphorus,’ said I.
‘Phosphorus?’ he ejaculated as though startled, ‘hoh, indeed sir! And might I wenture to ask why it is that the water don’t put it out?’