I really think I shall take to Guide-book writing. _Grandolph's Guides_ would be immensely popular. I'm sure I can do it--for upon my word I can do a'most anything if I only buckle to. By the way, '_Buckle_' suggests history. Can go in for "making history" when I've done this work. WILLIAMS--not MONTAGU the Magistrate--(good title this for something)--but my friend the Companionable Captain ---- is at work; when he has done, he reads out a few descriptive paragraphs for my approbation, or the contrary. When I nod it means that I like it; when I don't nod, he has to wait till I do. I generally begin nodding about the middle of the first paragraph. "Well," says he, the other day, quite suddenly, "I'm glad you like it all so much." "Like all what?" I exclaimed, blowing the cigar-ash off my pyjamas, and wondering to myself how I could have been so absorbed in his reading aloud as to have let my half-smoked havannah tumble on to the floor. "Why, all I've been reading to you for the last hour and a half," returned the Captain, apparently somewhat annoyed; peppery chap, the Captain,--'Curried' Captain when on board Sir DONALD's boat,--but to resume. Says the Curried Captain, still a bit annoyed, "You passed all the paragraphs, one after the other, and whenever I stopped to ask you how you liked it, you nodded." I didn't like to hurt the gallant scribe's feelings, but the fact is that he, as a reader, has a very soothing-syrupy tone and, I fancy, that in less than a quarter of an hour, judging by the moiety of my cigar. I must have fallen fast asleep. "That's posted, is it?" I ask, evading further explanation. "It is," he answers. "But I've got another lot--" "Good!" I interrupt him, rather abruptly I own, but, from experience I say it, if I don't take myself when in the humour--'on the hop,' so to speak, as they said of the _scarabæus_ in Kent--(trust _me_ for natural history and plenty of it)--I'm no use at all. Now at this moment I am wide awake, a giant refreshed; so I light another fragrant weed, and call for another cool drink, as I haven't the smallest idea what became of the one I ordered when the Gallant Graphist commenced reading; I rather suspect he 'put it to his lips when so dispoged,' and that, in this instance also, he mistook my nod for silent but emphatic encouragement. "Now," I say to the Amiable Amanuensis and Adaptable Author, "you read your stuff aloud with emphasis and discretion, and I'll chuck in the ornamental part. Excuse me, that's _my_ drink," I say, with an emphasis on the possessive pronoun, for the Soldierly Scribe, in a moment of absorption, was about to apply that process to my liquor. He apologises handsomely, and commences his recital. In the absence of a gong,--one ought never to travel without a gong,--I whack the tea-tray with a paper-knife. "All in to begin!"