onderating
station. But then the master does not eat, sleep, live, and wash his
dirty linen in the midst of his admirers; he escapes, he has a room of
his own, he leads a private life; if he had nothing else, he has the
holidays, and the more unhappy Tembinok' is always on the stage and on
the stretch.

In all my coming and going, I never heard him speak harshly or express
the least displeasure. An extreme, rather heavy, benignity--the
benignity of one sure to be obeyed--marked his demeanour; so that I was
at times reminded of Samuel Richardson in his circle of admiring women.
The wives spoke up and seemed to volunteer opinions, like our wives at
home--or, say, like doting but respectable aunts. Altogether, I conclude
that he rules his seraglio much more by art than terror; and those who
give a different account (and who have none of them enjoyed my
opportunities of observation) perhaps failed to distinguish between
degrees of rank, between "my pamily" and the hangers-on, laundresses,
and prostitutes.

A notable feature is the evening game of cards; when lamps are set forth
upon the terrace, and "I and my pamily" play for tobacco by the hour. It
is highly characteristic of Tembinok' that he must invent a game for
himself; highly characteristic of his worshipping household that they
should swear by the absurd invention. It is founded on poker, played
with the honours out of many packs, and inconceivably dreary. But I have
a passion for all games, studied it, and am supposed to be the only
white who ever fairly grasped its principle: a fact for which the wives
(with whom I was not otherwise popular) admired me with acclamation. It
was impossible to be deceived; this was a genuine feeling: they were
proud of their private game, had been cut to the quick by the want of
interest shown in it by others, and expanded under the flattery of my
attention. Tembinok' puts up a double stake, and receives in return two
hands to choose from: a shallow artifice which the wives (in all these
years) have not yet fathomed. He himself, when talking with me
privately, made not the least secret that he was secure of winning; and
it was thus he explained his recent liberality on board the _Equator_.
He let the wives buy their own tobacco, which pleased them at the
moment. He won it back at cards, which made him once more, and without
fresh expense, that which he ought to be,--the sole fount of all
indulgences. And he summed the matter up in