thing else, but it has
made the consuls sit up. My own private scares were really abominably
annoying; as for instance after I had got to sleep for the ninth time
perhaps--and that was no easy matter either, for I had a crick in my
neck so agonising that I had to sleep sitting up--I heard noises as of a
man being murdered in the boys' house. To be sure, said I, this is
nothing again, but if a man's head was being taken, the noises would be
the same! So I had to get up, stifle my cries of agony from the crick,
get my revolver, and creep out stealthily to the boys' house. And there
were two of them sitting up, keeping watch of their own accord like good
boys, and whiling the time over a game of Sweepi (Cascino--the whist of
our islanders)--and one of them was our champion idiot, Misifolo, and I
suppose he was holding bad cards, and losing all the time--and these
noises were his humorous protests against Fortune!

Well, excuse this excursion into my "blacks and chocolates." It is the
last. You will have heard from Lysaght how I failed to write last mail.
The said Lysaght seems to me a very nice fellow. We were only sorry he
could not stay with us longer. Austin came back from school last week,
which made a great time for the Amanuensis, you may be sure. Then on
Saturday, the _Curacoa_ came in--same commission, with all our old
friends; and on Sunday, as already mentioned, Austin and I went down to
service and had lunch afterwards in the wardroom. The officers were
awfully nice to Austin; they are the most amiable ship in the world; and
after lunch we had a paper handed round on which we were to guess, and
sign our guess, of the number of leaves on the pine-apple; I never saw
this game before, but it seems it is much practised in the Queen's
Navee. When all have betted, one of the party begins to strip the
pine-apple head, and the person whose guess is furthest out has to pay
for the sherry. My equanimity was disturbed by shouts of _The American
Commodore_, and I found that Austin had entered and lost about a bottle
of sherry! He turned with great composure and addressed me. "I am afraid
I must look to you, Uncle Louis." The Sunday School racket is only an
experiment which I took up at the request of the late American Land
Commissioner; I am trying it for a month, and if I do as ill as I
believe, and the boys find it only half as tedious as I do, I think it
will end in a month. I have _carte blanche_, and say what I like; bu