I showed you. Now, this was become a perfect
necessity of existence to me. I could have dispensed with cheese, with my
glass of port, my pickled mango, my olive, my anchovy toast, my nutshell of
curacoa, but not my favorite lounge. You may smile; but I've read of a man
who could never dance except in a room with an old hair-brush. Now, I'm
certain my stomach would not digest if my legs were perpendicular. I
don't mean to defend the thing. The attitude was not graceful, it was not
imposing; but it suited me somehow, and I liked it.

"From what I have already mentioned, you may suppose that West India habits
exercised but little control over my favorite practice, which I indulged
in every evening of my life. Well, one day old Hackett gave us a great
blow-out,--a dinner of two-and-twenty souls; six days' notice; turtle from
St. Lucie, guinea-fowl, claret of the year forty, Madeira _a discretion_,
and all that. Very well done the whole thing; nothing wrong, nothing
wanting. As for me, I was in great feather. I took Polly in to dinner,
greatly to the discomfiture of old Belson, our major, who was making up in
that quarter; for you must know, she was an only daughter, and had a very
nice thing of it in molasses and niggers. The papa preferred the major,
but Polly looked sweetly upon me. Well, down we went, and really a most
excellent feed we had. Now, I must mention here that Polly had a favorite
Blenheim spaniel the old fellow detested; it was always tripping him up and
snarling at him,--for it was, except to herself, a beast of rather vicious
inclinations. With a true Jamaica taste, it was her pleasure to bring the
animal always into the dinner-room, where, if papa discovered him, there
was sure to be a row. Servants sent in one direction to hunt him out,
others endeavoring to hide him, and so on; in fact, a tremendous hubbub
always followed his introduction and accompanied his exit, upon which
occasions I invariably exercised my gallantry by protecting the beast,
although I hated him like the devil all the time.

"To return to our dinner. After two mortal hours of hard eating, the pace
began to slacken, and as evening closed in, a sense of peaceful repose
seemed to descend upon our labors. Pastels shed an aromatic vapor
through the room. The well-iced decanters went with measured pace along;
conversation, subdued to the meridian of after-dinner comfort, just
murmured; the open _jalousies_ displayed upon the broad veranda t