," said
she. I smelt it, and--it smelt very funny. "I think it's just gone bad,
and to-morrow will tell." Proved to be so.

_Wednesday._--History of Tuesday.--Woke at usual time, very little work,
for I was tired, and had a job for the evening--to write parts for a new
instrument, a violin. Lunch, chat, and up to my place to practise; but
there was no practising for me--my flageolet was gone wrong, and I had
to take it all to pieces, clean it, and put it up again. As this is a
most intricate job--the thing dissolves into seventeen separate members,
most of these have to be fitted on their individual springs as fine as
needles, and sometimes two at once with the springs shoving different
ways--it took me till two. Then Lloyd and I rode forth on our errands;
first to Motootua, where we had a really instructive conversation on
weeds and grasses. Thence down to Apia, where we bought a fresh bottle
of chlorodyne and conversed on politics.

My visit to the King, which I thought at the time a particularly
nugatory and even schoolboy step, and only consented to because I had
held the reins so tight over my little band before, has raised a deuce
of a row--new proclamation, no one is to interview the sacred puppet
without consuls' permission, two days' notice, and an approved
interpreter--read (I suppose) spy. Then back; I should have said I was
trying the new horse; a tallish piebald, bought from the circus; he
proved steady and safe, but in very bad condition, and not so much the
wild Arab steed of the desert as had been supposed. The height of his
back, after commodious Jack, astonished me, and I had a great
consciousness of exercise and florid action, as I posted to his long,
emphatic trot. We had to ride back easy; even so he was hot and blown;
and when we set a boy to lead him to and fro, our last character for
sanity perished. We returned just neat for dinner; and in the evening
our violinist arrived, a young lady, no great virtuoso truly, but
plucky, industrious, and a good reader; and we played five pieces with
huge amusement, and broke up at nine. This morning I have read a
splendid piece of Montaigne, written this page of letter, and now turn
to _The Wrecker_.

_Wednesday._--November 16th or 17th--and I am ashamed to say mail day.
_The Wrecker_ is finished, that is the best of my news; it goes by this
mail to Scribner's; and I honestly think it a good yarn on the whole and
of its measly kind. The part that is genuin