On arriving at manhood, and having just quitted college and had an independence left me, the desire once more came strongly on me to see the world—not the fashionable world, as an infinitesimal portion of the human race delight to call themselves, but the great big round globe, covered with our fellow-creatures of varied colours, languages, customs, and religions.
“Good-bye, Aunt Becky! I really and truly am off this time,” I exclaimed, as I rushed into my dear, good old aunt’s drawing-room at Burton, she looking as neat and trim as ever, being the perfection of nice old-maidenism, not a whit older than when, some thirteen years before, I had been brought there a prisoner by my uncle.
“Where are you going to, my dear?” asked Aunt Becky, lifting up her spectacles from her nose with a look of surprise.
“Oh, only just across the Atlantic, to take a run up and down North and South America, as a kind of experiment before I attempt a tour, by land and water, to China and Japan, and home again by way of Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti, by the Panama route, which I mean to do some of these days.”
“Well, well,” said Aunt Becky, “you are a true Skipwith, and if that Captain Grant hadn’t got the start of you, I suppose you would have discovered the source of the Nile and the snow mountains under the equator, and, like Hercules, in that gem on my finger, which I wear for the sake of an old friend, have come home with a lion’s skin across your shoulder, or dressed up like an ape, as Monsieur de Chaillu did sometime ago. However, I shall wish, Harry, if you ever want an additional hundred pounds or so, draw on me; I have always some spare cash at the banker’s. But you’ll never came back if you attempt half you talk of doing. You’ll be scalped by Indians, or roasted and eaten by other savages; or be tossed by buffaloes, or lost in the snow; or be blown up in one of those dreadful American steamers, which seem to do nothing else; or you’ll catch a fever, or be cast away on a desolate island, and we shall never hear anything more of you; or something else dreadful will happen to you, I am certain.”
“Never mind, Aunt Becky; I shall be embalmed in your memory, at all events,” I answered; “and besides, I am going to have a companion to look after me.”
“Who can he be who would venture to accompany such a harum-scarum fellow as you are, Harry?” said my aunt, looking more satisfied.
“One who has ever proved faithful, aunt: his name is Ready.”
“Why, he’s your dog, Harry!” she exclaimed, disappointed.
“Could I have a more trustworthy and, at the same time, active and intelligent follower?” I asked. “I had thought of taking Bunbry,” (he was my father’s old butler, and remarkable for his obesity and laziness); “but you see, aunt, in the first place, my father could not spare him; and, in the second, he could not exactly keep up with me on a day’s march of thirty or forty miles, and would certainly be nowhere when chasing wild buffaloes, or hunting panthers or grizzly bears. So I gave up the idea of having a servant at all; and as for a friend, I don’t happen to be supplied with one ready to go, and I hope to find plenty on the way.”