‘Oh yes, that’s all very fine,’ said he; ‘but I suppose you know that tiger-hunting isn’t altogether like chasing a hare, for instance.’ ‘Don’t tiger-hunt, then,’ said I, growing sick of all this. ‘Hark! what fine voice is that singing in the cuddy?’ He pricked his ear. ‘Oh, it is Miss Temple,’ said he; and he stole away to the after skylight, through which a glimpse of the piano was to be had. He took a peep, then bestowed a train of nods upon me, and a moment after crept below. Alas! for Fanny Crawley, thought I. Both of the wide skylights were open, and Miss Temple’s voice rose clear and full, a rich contralto, with now and then a tremor sounding through it in an added quality of sweetness. Those who were walking paused to listen, and those who were seated let fall their work or lifted their eyes from their books. Mr. Johnson and one or two others assembled at the skylight. But no one saving friend Colledge offered to go below. I could have bet a thousand pounds that the cuddy was empty, or the girl never would have sung. In fact, one took notice of a sort of timidity in the very hearkening of the people to her, as though she were a princess whose voice was something to be listened to afar and with respect, and who was not to be approached or disturbed on any account whatever. Soon after she had ended, a male voice piped up, and Mr. Johnson, after listening a little, came sauntering over to me. ‘Your friend Colledge don’t sing ill,’ he exclaimed with the complacent grin he usually put on before delivering himself. ‘Do you feel equal to a small bet?’ ‘What’s the wager to be about?’ ‘I bet you,’ said he, closing one eye, ‘twenty shillings to a crown that Mr. Colledge and Miss Temple will have plighted their troth before we strike the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope.’ ‘Why not latitude?’ said I. ‘Why, my dear sir, don’t you see that the longitude gives me a broader margin?’ And the fellow was actually beginning to explain the difference between latitude and longitude, when I cut him short. ‘I’ll not bet,’ said I; ‘I have no wish to win your money on a certainty. They won’t be engaged, and so you’d better keep your sovereign.’ He whistled low, and with a melancholy attempt at a comical cast of countenance, exclaimed: ‘Ah, I see how it goes. It is the wish, my friend, that’s father to the thought. But Lor’ preserve us; my dear Mr. Dugdale, do you suppose that a young lady after her pattern would ever condescend to cast her eye upon anything even the sixtieth part of one single degree beneath the level of the son of a baron and heir to the title and property?’ ‘Do you recollect,’ said I, ‘how your name-sake Dr. Samuel Johnson told his friends that being teased by a neighbour at table to give his opinion on Horace or Virgil, I forget which, he immediately fixed his attention on thoughts of Punch and Judy? Suffer me now to imitate that great man and to think of Punch and Judy.’