Puslapio vaizdai
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accounted for her asking me somewhat petulantly why I why I always called Captain-erMif-er-Pardi by such a silly name. I did not point out her own effort was not much better, but meekly explained that the Chocolate Soldier was the hero in Bernard Shaw's 'Arms and the Man.' Octavia, I was sure, had never read the play, but I was equally sure she would not admit it, for to have some knowledge of Shaw is quite admissible even meritorious. Had I explained that the Chocolate Soldier was only the money-catching name for a musical comedy based on the play, Octavia would have scorned me for knowing anying about it, and unctuously announced her own ignorance.

As we talked, up dashed a carrozza, and as it came to the door pulled up with violence in answer to a prod in the driver's back. It is apparently the only way to stop a carrozza-driver-no use giving the number of the house, or any little thing like that, just give the general direction, and prod him when you reach the right spot, otherwise I think he would drive till the works ran down.

Captain Mifsud Samut Azzopardi rushed up the steps, and invoked God to tell us how hurried he had been. The explanation was not vouchsafed, but we forgave him without it.

Going over the inventory was the merest farce. We practically had to take it as

read-for we were hurried from room to room, our landlord glancing casually at the book of the words, and giving us no time to verify anything; as for examining the china, to see what was broken or cracked --such a proceeding would have been unthinkable with the noble owner's eye upon us, and in face of his cheery generalisations.

"Everything very A1china, all the best-no house could you find with more damgood furnishing-no need to count-I have it here and the inventory says all correct-shall we say, like your Navy boys, 'Make it so, my God? I never heard Navy-boyBobbie ask the Deity's help in that matter, but our arrogant British way is to be so independent.

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the key and "We come six o'clock ? Go to market for you?"

Evidently the servant problem was not yet acute in this Isle of the Blessed! One might have expected that fact at least to have reached England, but as Octavia said, "No doubt there's a catch in it somewhere."

As we had expected to get a flat or a house, we had brought out linen with us, and had there been more of us we should have wished we had brought blankets likewise, for the dam-fine house was after all a dam-fine summerhouse, and only possessed one thin blanket to each bed! But there were six beds, and only two of us, so that was arranged all right.

While we were unpacking and arranging the rest of our belongings, Carmèla came up and announced that Mrs FrendoFalzon was in the drawing

room.

We went down and found a small, dark, most vivacious little lady-plump and brown and downy-I always thought of her as Madame Patapouffe. Unlike her brother, she talked English with a ceaseless staccato ease, like a motor-bicycle with the silencer cut out, and gesticulated with such emphasis that the most ordinary remark became dramatic.

We thanked her for providing us so kindly with servants-and this launched her into a diatribe about Maltese servants, and how to circumvent their nefarious devices,

that would have been vastly depressing had one not been pretty sure the excitable little Italian was herself a contributory cause in the household crises.

"The Maltese, they are all thiefs and liars-the low-class ones, of course, I mean." This added, no doubt, at the sudden remembrance that she had married one of the despised race. "And lazy!" She threw up her hands and eyes in wordless horror, and from association of ideas I piously ejaculated "My God!" to Octavia's utter horror. To Madame Patapouffe it demonstrated that I was indeed "simpatica," for she put her hand on mine and pronounced tragically, "Yes, you say it-my God!

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Before she left she told us with pride that she was having her little boy brought up quite in the English fashion, and had "a so excellent English governess for him." We asked the lady's name and were told "Meesmaizon."

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the Knight of Malta one at the hotel, we felt tremendously proud of our beautiful geyser contraption-and rather in need

of it!

The bath itself was made of a material I have never seen used for that purpose beforeapparently chips of the ubiquitous marble held together with cement, and looking like a sort of nougat. Of course Octavia understands geysers and lighted it. I felt more like commending myself specially to Providence, and indeed Carmèla, who assisted, at least in the French sense, did cross herself. How ever, nothing untoward happened-then! As usual the trouble came from the unsuspected source. We left the bath to fill, and in about half an hour I went upstairs again to see how it was getting on. It met me half-way! Down our marble staircase flowed a gentle stream of still warm water, which with squeals for help to Octavia I waded through

The

to its source, the bath! geyser was blameless, but the bath was cracked! We spent a hectic time, mopping up from the stair and bath-room the beautiful flow of hot water previously destined for myself. Of course I got a good deal of it, one way and another, but not in that calm and contemplative fashion suitable to hot baths.

Next day we bought some putty and made a beautiful mend, looking like a laidlyworm crawling in the bath. The putty proved very passing in its action-in fact, it passed away after every bath, so we had to keep a supply in the bathroom, and anoint the bath with it every time.

We would have been well advised to consult our landlord at once, but he had been so friendly we did not like to seem exigent. We understood the Maltese character better before we left! But of that more anon!

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the points of the compass, is a perpetual swell, even on whereas I only realised we calm days, and the rise and faced east when the rising sun fall of the surface ten feet or woke me. more. All the time we were there Octavia never could time her exits with the top of the swell, but was always left sprawling half on and half off, while the sea receded under her. Of course, agility is not a quality one expects to find among Octavia's physical attractions, but the lack of it was all the more deplorable: if a skinamalink like me is thrown about like seaweed or a stranded star-fish, it hardly matters, but Octavia's stately bulk spread out flat on its face in a wet bathing-gown is a woeful debasement.

All my eloquence failed to make Octavia budge from her calendar and try bathing, so I went by myself, and then and there the two maids decided that I was not quite responsible, and Octavia my not very effective keeper. I sympathised with their views easily enough-having just had unlimited hot weather for bathing, they would have been as senseless as the Serpentine brigade to continue when it was over. But Octavia-no, she had no excuse but stiff-necked conventionality!

Till I set about bathing, I had not noticed what the sea was doing about tides-it always seemed "in" when I looked at it, but that was no doubt coincidence (that pun was accidental, so Bobbie need not have howled like a dog in pain when I told him); but when it comes to bathing in the early morning, experience has taught me the tide is always down to the very quick. But at Sliema this depressing habit is never indulged in by the sea, and it lapped away, or roared over, our immediate shore, conscientiously, day in, day out.

It is not the sort of bathing to encourage the nervous or non-swimmers, for the visible shore is just the top-ledge of a precipice, and the sea anything in depth-to the eye, bottomless. Besides this there

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We soon made the acquaintance of "Mees Maison." She was not strictly a countryman-woman " of ours, although so described, for she was Scotch, and her father neither a clergyman nor an Episcopalian, but merely a Protestant, which, of course, from an ignorant Italian point of view, might be considered the Church of England. Octavia is better at seeing nuances in religious matters than I am, and she treated Miss Mason as belonging to something queerer, and much less respectable, than even Roman Catholicism. For Mason père was not merely a Protestant but a Presbyterian! Catholics may be lost in eternity, but Dissenters are lost even now-socially. That a Presbyterian is not a Dissenter in Scotland Octavia brushed aside as a mere quibble;

self into himself in profound meditation—not to call it slumber. As we rounded St Julian's Bay, a motor overtook and passed us. There are not very many of those infernal machines on the island, and our animal was not yet blasé about them. He awoke from his somnambulism, cocked his ears, and with a look of determination, visible even on the back of his head, he spread out his legs and tore after the motor, determined to show that he could do quite as well as it if he chose. Bobbie was driving

that an Episcopalian is she refused to believe as an obvious heresy. Still there was some bond between them, as Miss Mason scorned the superstitions of the benighted Maltese as much as Octavia. But as one might watch any pagan rites for the interest of it, and as there was no denying the picturesqueness of many of them, Octavia and Miss Mason arranged to go together to see the next big religious festa which was to be held at Musta. I meant to go too, but just the day before, Bobbie announced he had a whole day-not that he knew anything off, and he and some other emancipated ones wanted to go over to Ghain Tuffeha to bathe. From a Maltese point of view, to bathe in November is sheer imbecility-like our ice-breaking heroes on the Serpentine, who shudder throughout the year, that they may appear in the illustrated penny papers at Christmas or New Year. But as far as real cold is concerned, bathing in Malta in November is preferable to England in June, so, of course, I said yes. It sounds a more frivolous choice than it was, because religious processions in Malta are really more frequent than naval leave.

So when the day came, beautifully bright as usual, and as windy as ever, I set off before lunch with Bobbie in a dogcart he had hired for the day. The horse was a high angular beast, with a drooping melancholy nose, and the moment he stood still, withdrew him

about horses or driving, but a little detail like that is no deterrent to the naval mind. At first Bobbie cheered the beast on with joyous whoops, till it dawned on him that my prayers and groans had some justification, as St Julian's is a village, and, like all villages, very full of children.

"This shall now stop," quoth Bobbie, and taking two round turns of the reins in either hand, and putting his massive feet on the dash-board, he proceeded to pull at the racing steed. No effect whatever-except to bend the dash-board outwards in a perilous manner. "This," said Bobbie through his clenched teeth, "is another Soul's Awakening."

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"Then it's a soul going to perdition if you can't stop it," I gasped. And oh, Bobbie, take your great feet down, or we'll go straight out if that thing breaks. Why did you let him get his head like that?

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