He seemed a little startled, then recovered himself, and jotted it down in his note-book. “I remember now,” he said, half apologetically. “It was not entirely my fault. I had slipped out to get a glass of beer, and I told the boy to send for me if anything happened. But he thought he could manage it himself, and he blundered, and I was blamed. So you both were born in the same body. I hope you were not crowded. Zeus had intended you to be born in different bodies, and fall in love with one another down below. But you can do it up here, you know. It’s not the same thing, but some people think it’s better: it’s much more spiritual. You will have this cloud all to yourselves for as long as you like. At any rate it was not so hard on you as it was on the girl’s body, which had to be born without any soul at all--but I am told that she made money out of it. Well, I must be off; good evening.” So the Manager departed, and they were alone, and they floated away into the night when the night came. And the sea sang beneath them, and the wind was warm and perfumed with flowers. “I love you for ever and ever,” he said. The same remark had just occurred to her--not strikingly original, perhaps, but both were satisfied with it. IX. ON ASSOCIATIONS: TOGETHER WITH A LAST ANECDOTE FROM THE “ENTERTAINMENTS” OF KAPNIDES. I think _Zeitgeist_ has grown lazy; I had meant to take it a long way to-day, but it simply stopped at the first shady spot it could find, and stretched itself there. One has to smoke a little brown tobacco to keep off the midges, but otherwise I do not mind much. I would not make use of my superior strength to force a tired boat to do more than it wanted to do. Besides, _Zeitgeist_ has earned some consideration. It has behaved excellently; in fact, it has almost been morbid in the politeness with which it has avoided running into other boats lately. Somebody, I see, has put a bottle of cider into the canoe. How thoughtless of him! There are a corkscrew and a drinking-horn as well. Perhaps it’s all for the best. The taste of cider should be full of associations. It should recall orchards in Devonshire; and rustic inns with porches, and honeysuckle, and earwigs; and the simple village maiden who got to be rather fond of the stranger artist, and cried a little in her simple village way when he went back again to civilisation. I am starving for dreamy poetry and pleasant memories this morning; I wish this cider had such beautiful associations for me. But it has not. To me cider is cider, and it is nothing more. I have never been in a Devonshire orchard; and I am not an artist; I have never drawn anything. Except corks. By the way, I may as well put that bottle of cider in the shallow water here. It will cool it. Then, afterwards, I may be able to forgive the person who put it into my canoe.