Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
came at length to my relief; and I began to nod my assent, much to my
tormentor's gratification. But presently I was dead asleep; and, most
unfortunately, my head dropped forward into the pit of his stomach.
The breath, knocked out of his body, escaped with a gasp, like an
Indian's "ugh!" In a moment I was broad awake, and made a thousand
apologies, which he politely accepted, and renewed the thread of his
discourse. Again, I dropped off; and again my head dropped forward.
Another "ugh!" another ocean of apologies, another resumption of the
endless yarn. The other passengers, two sedate and remarkably silent
gentlemen of Falmouth, in broad-brimmed hats and drab coats of a
peculiar cut, had each his weather-eye open, and began to enjoy the
joke amazingly. Gradually, once more, the incessant clack subsided in
my ears to a pleasing hum; I was off; the cervical, dorsal, and lumbar
muscles once more lost their tension beneath the narcotic influence of
incessant sound; and my drowsy head gave a pitch as before, with the
same results--"ugh!"--apologies unlimited--ditto accepted--and more
yarn. The Quakers--I beg their pardon, the "Friends"--are, you must
know, eminently humourists. This, please to take notice, arises from
their superior intelligence, and high degree of mental culture; the
result of which is high susceptibility. You might now have seen, in
our two fellow-travellers in the Falmouth coach, what you would see
nowhere but in their "connexion"--two men ready to die of laughing,
and each looking as grave as a judge. For a few miles it went on.
Talk--sleep--head pitched into bread-basket--"ugh!"--pungent and
profound regrets--regrets accepted--talk recommenced--and so on with a
perpetual _da capo_. At length the most gifted of gratuitous lecturers
began to perceive that he was contributing to the amusement of the
party in a way that he had not intended, and grew indignant. But I
pacified him, as we drove into Falmouth, by politely soliciting a card
of his house; stepped out of the coach into the coffee-room of the
hotel, out of the coffee-room into bed as soon as it was ready, and
made up for two sleepless nights by not coming down to breakfast till
two o'clock the next day.
The Lisbon packet was not to sail for a week. My extra baggage arrived
in due time by the heavy; and I occupied the interval, as best I
could, in a pedestrian survey of the environs of Falmouth, walks to
Truro, Pendennis Castle, &c. I was much delighted with clouted cream,
and gave the landlady an unlimited order always to let me have a john
dory for dinner, when there was one in the market. N.B.--No place like
Falmouth for john dories. Clouted cream always ask for, when you go
into the West--very good with tea, not bad with coffee; and _mem._,
unimpeachable with apple-pie.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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