Then again (and really as I enumerate these multitudinous advantages, I
begin to relent for having called it dull), you may pick up curious
agate pebbles on the beach, as well as corallines and scarce sea-weeds,
good for gumming on front-parlour windows; you may fish _for_ whitings
in the bay, and occasionally catch them; you may wade in huge caoutchouc
boots among the muddy shallows of the Mullet, and shoot _at_ cormorants
and curlews; you may walk to satiety between high-banked and rather
dirty cross-roads; and, if you will scramble up the hedge-row, may get
now and then peeps of undulated country landscape.
Moreover, you have free liberty to drop in any where to
"tiffin"--Burleigh being very Indianized, and a guest always welcome;
indeed, so Indianized is it, so populous in jaundiced cheek and ailing
livers, that you may openly assert, without fear of being misunderstood
(if you wish to vary your common phrase of loyalty), that Victoria sits
upon the "musnud" of Great Britain; you may order curry in the smallest
pot-house, and still be sure to get the rice well-cooked; you may call
your house-maid "ayah," without risk of warning for impertinence; you
may vent your wrath against indolent waiters in eloquence of "jaa,
soostee;" and, finally, you may go to the library, and besides the
advantage of the day-before-yesterday's Times, you may behold in bilious
presence an affable, but authoritative, old gentleman, who introduces
himself, "Sir, you see in me the hero of Puttymuddyfudgepoor.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25