s beastly frogs to ME! If he had dared to, I should have
pitched him into the sea, stock and all. I did once, when he began
bothering people to buy things they had no wish for."

"Ah," I said, "doubtless he alluded to that circumstance when he told me
you had been sharp with him before to-day."

Among the passengers who joined us at Dominica was an old friend, an
ample, full-bodied, admirable gentleman who travelled from England with
us, and found the ocean extremely monotonous and trying upon the voyage
out. The same trouble still dogged his footsteps. He came aboard quite
wild and haggard, and declared the universal and appalling lack of
variety was telling upon his health.

[Illustration: "A FULL-BODIED GENTLEMAN."]

"Just think of it," he said, "wherever you turn, nothing but negroes and
cocoanut palms, cocoanut palms and negroes. Every place is exactly like
the last; every palm tree exactly like every other; every negro
identical with the rest. I never saw such a monotonous set of islands in
my life."

"Look at their beauty," I said.

"I have, until I'm out of all heart with it," he replied. "A pinnacle or
two, with clouds round the top; a field of sugar-cane; hundreds of
palms, hundreds of blacks; mean houses and a paltry pier--that's a West
Indian island. I liked the first; I tolerated the second; I even bore
with the third; but the fourth wearied me; the fifth harrowed me; the
sixth sickened me; the seventh--that is this one--has absolutely
maddened me; and the eighth or ninth will probably kill me."

I said:

"You ought not to have come here. Why did you?"

"I took advice," he answered drearily. "So-called friends assured me
that what I wanted was constant change of scene, with variety and
novelty. They asserted that these things were to be found in the West
Indies, and I believed them. Look at the climate, too; even that never
changes. Look at the sky; English people cannot stand this eternal
surface of dead blue. They are not accustomed to it, and it frets their
optic nerves. In fact, the whole scheme of things here sets the nervous
system on edge from morning till night. There is a cannon somewhere in
this steamer, and it will fire in a moment; for no reason, that I can
see, except a nautical love of unnecessary noise. These ships cannot
come to a place or depart again without firing off their wretched brass
guns."

[Illustration: "'WITHOUT FIRING OFF THEIR WRETCHED BRASS GUNS.'"]

He went moan