than any amount of
wisdom, I began to get quite as bad, and Alister's disgust only made me
worse. I unfeignedly dreaded the approach of that black hat and those
triangular feet, for they made me giggle in spite of myself, and I knew
a ship's rules far too well not to know how fearful would be the result
of any public exhibition of disrespect.

However, we three were not always together, and we had been apart a
good bit when we met (as ill-luck would have it) at the moment when the
pilot's boat was just alongside, ready for his departure.

"What's the boat for?" asked Alister, who had been below.

"And who would it be for," replied Dennis, "but the gentleman in the
black hat? Alister, dear! what's the reason I can't tread on a nigger's
heels without treading on your toes?"

"Hush!" cried I, in torment, "he's coming."

We stood at attention, but never can I forget the agony of the next few
minutes. That hat, that face, those flat black feet, that strut, that
smile. I felt a sob of laughter beginning somewhere about my waist-belt,
and yet my heart ached with fear for Dennis. Oh, if only His
Magnificence would move a little quicker, and let us have it over!

There's a fish at Bermuda that is known as the toad-fish (so Alfonso
told me), and when you tickle it it blows itself out after the manner of
the frog who tried to be as big as an ox. It becomes as round as a
football, and if you throw it on the water it floats. If you touch it it
sounds (according to Alfonso) "all same as a banjo." It will live some
time out of water; and if it shows any signs of subsiding, another
tickle will blow it out again. "Too muchee tickle him burst," said
Alfonso. I had heard this decidedly nasty story just before the pilot's
departure, and it was now the culmination of all the foolish thoughts
that gibbered in my head. I couldn't help thinking of it as I held my
breath to suppress my laughter, and quaked for the yet more volatile
Dennis. Oh, dear! Why wouldn't that mass of absurdity walk quicker? His
feet were big enough. Meanwhile we stood like mutes--eyes front! To have
looked at each other would have been fatal. "Too muchee tickle him
burst." I hope we looked grave (I have little doubt now that we looked
as if we were having our photographs taken). The sob had mounted from my
waist to my throat. My teeth were set, my eyes watered, but the pilot
was here now. In a moment he would be down the side. With an excess of
zeal I found stren