United States or Paraguay ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All the starboard side of the bulk-head was filled by a piano, which was bevelled off at its lower right-hand corner so as to fit against the sheathing. Cospatric followed my glance. "Yes, it's an upright 'grand, and German, specially made. It is rather bulky for the size of the ship, but you see we're a bit musical here. Haigh plays. By the way, you haven't seen Haigh yet."
The day flushed hotly as it wore on, and still the breeze kept light. We slid through the water slowly, leaving scarce a trace of wake behind us. Haigh smoked and drank vermouth; Taltavull busied himself below with dealing, on paper, with tremendous sums of money; I bathed at intervals, diving from the bowsprit end, and climbing aboard again by the lee runner.
I trust, however, he knows my name; for here I shall only sign myself, señores, your infinite superior, "That's delicious," said Haigh when he had finished reading. "But the insults, señor," said the anarchist, turning round again. "Beautiful!" "Have you read those burning gibes?" "The humour of the thing's transcendental." "Señor Haigh, look at that letter calmly." "I am doing.
The fact was pointed out, and we looked her over again as one looks at an old friend who has rendered a big service. "Bit of a change this day from that, isn't it?" said Haigh. "About as big as they make 'em," I admitted. "I'm not so sure that I care for it, though," said he. "It had its strong points that trip." "Especially when it was over," I agreed. "Yes, it's fine to look back at."
It was my trick at the tiller, and so I was tied aft. Haigh peered round at the ruin, and returned to his occupation of knocking weevils out of his biscuit. He didn't think it worth while to budge, and so we let the canvas blow into whatever shaped ribands it chose. If we couldn't carry the sail, we didn't want it.
Orchestral music was their formula for the highest form of the art, and orchestral music they accordingly played, that queer creature Haigh blinking over the upright grand, and Cospatric behind him bringing sounds out of his violin such as I never heard amateur produce before, with a combined result that was always marvellous, and sometimes verged upon that abstract goal, perfection.
During one of these bumps in the uneven street the door flew open, and the camera fell out on the cobble stones with a thud and a sound of splintering glass. "And I thought that man a Juggins," said Haigh, "and imagined I was blarneying and greening him ad libitum, whilst all the time he was bamboozling me me me, gentlemen. But, Señor Taltavull, are you perfectly certain the fellow is blind?
Haigh and I went up to our hotel, asked for a bedroom, and in Spanish style got a suite of apartments. We were just in time for dinner, and, having arrived en prince in our own vessel, were going to be billeted amongst the habitués of the place garrison soldiers, petty "proprietors," and priests who sat round the superior table in the big room.
He pulled up there, but Haigh snatched hold of the reins through the front window, and turning the animals off the road, sent them with a yell into the palm scrub that fringed it.
And then I had visions of further inquiries; the official glee with which more unsatisfactory items were arrived at; the head-shakes of the British Vice-Consul; and and then after that a deluge of lurid complexion. These maundering cogitations must have spread themselves over a considerable time, for when Haigh roused me up, he said that I had slept very nearly round the clock.
Word Of The Day