“I was the man to appreciate it all. The whole course of proceeding seemed to have been invented for my peculiar convenience, and not a man in the island enjoyed a more luxurious existence than myself, not knowing all the while how dearly I was destined to pay for my little comforts. Among my plenary after-dinner indulgences I had contracted an inveterate habit of sitting cross-legged, as I showed you. Now, this was become a perfect necessity of existence to me. I could have dispensed with cheese, with my glass of port, my pickled mango, my olive, my anchovy toast, my nutshell of curaçoa, but not my favorite lounge. You may smile; but I’ve read of a man who could never dance except in a room with an old hair-brush. Now, I’m certain my stomach would not digest if my legs were perpendicular. I don’t mean to defend the thing. The attitude was not graceful, it was not imposing; but it suited me somehow, and I liked it. “From what I have already mentioned, you may suppose that West India habits exercised but little control over my favorite practice, which I indulged in every evening of my life. Well, one day old Hackett gave us a great blow-out,--a dinner of two-and-twenty souls; six days’ notice; turtle from St. Lucie, guinea-fowl, claret of the year forty, Madeira _à discrétion_, and all that. Very well done the whole thing; nothing wrong, nothing wanting. As for me, I was in great feather. I took Polly in to dinner, greatly to the discomfiture of old Belson, our major, who was making up in that quarter; for you must know, she was an only daughter, and had a very nice thing of it in molasses and niggers. The papa preferred the major, but Polly looked sweetly upon me. Well, down we went, and really a most excellent feed we had. Now, I must mention here that Polly had a favorite Blenheim spaniel the old fellow detested; it was always tripping him up and snarling at him,--for it was, except to herself, a beast of rather vicious inclinations. With a true Jamaica taste, it was her pleasure to bring the animal always into the dinner-room, where, if papa discovered him, there was sure to be a row. Servants sent in one direction to hunt him out, others endeavoring to hide him, and so on; in fact, a tremendous hubbub always followed his introduction and accompanied his exit, upon which occasions I invariably exercised my gallantry by protecting the beast, although I hated him like the devil all the time. “To return to our dinner. After two mortal hours of hard eating, the pace began to slacken, and as evening closed in, a sense of peaceful repose seemed to descend upon our labors. Pastels shed an aromatic vapor through the room. The well-iced decanters went with measured pace along; conversation, subdued to the meridian of after-dinner comfort, just murmured; the open _jalousies_ displayed upon the broad veranda the orange-tree in full blossom, slightly stirring with the cool sea-breeze.” “And the piece of white muslin beside you, what of her?”