United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Of course I quite reckon upon arriving two or three weeks ahead of you; but unless you have an exceptionally protracted passage you ought to arrive in good time to return home with us. Unless, therefore, the Mercury's agent in Sydney wishes you to return to England in the ship, you had better make your way to Melbourne as soon as you have settled up, and go back with us."
Well, when its owner went in at the door, what should this wonderful staff do but spread its little wings and go hop-hop, flutter-flutter up the steps; then it went tap-tap across the kitchen floor and did not stop till it stood close behind Mercury's chair. No one noticed this, as Baucis and her husband were too busy attending to their guests.
He tore it open, and ran his eye over the columns, but they contained no extraordinary matter. Nothing unexpected had befallen; there was an account of the nomination, and plenty of rancour against the Radicals, but assuredly, up to the hour of the Mercury's going to press, no public scandal had exploded in Polterham. What did it mean? Was Marks delaying for some definite reason?
According to this theory, then, Mercury's orbit would be included within that of Venus, which is more than twice as great, and would find room enough within it for its revolution.
There were Jupiter and Juno; there were Argus with his hundred eyes, the beautiful heifer that was Io, and the crafty Mercury. In rapt attention we listened until those eyes of Argus were transferred to the feathers of the peacock. If Mercury's story of his musical pipe closed the eyes of Argus, grandmother's story opened ours wide, and we clamored for another, as boys will do.
What was her surprise when a stream of fresh milk fell bubbling into the bowl and overflowed on to the table, and the two snakes that were twisted round Mercury's staff stretched out their heads and began to lap it up. "And now, a slice of your brown loaf, pray Mother Baucis, and a little honey," asked Mercury.
The consignees of the Mercury's original cargo the names and addresses of whom were mentioned in the ship's manifest, found by me, with the rest of the ship's papers, in the captain's desk were of course only too glad to accept the cargo of sandalwood brought from the island, in lieu of the much less valuable merchandise originally consigned to them, and they at once chartered the ship to carry the wood to Canton, one of the partners a Mr Henderson going with it in the capacity of supercargo to dispose of it, upon arrival.
"The cost of that," said Faragaut, seriously now, "will be about fifty-three million at the market price. You'd have to put up twenty-six cash, and I don't believe you've got it." Buck laughed. "Tom, loan me a dozen million, will you? You send that order through, and then come see what I've got. I've got a break, too! Mercury's the best metal for this use and it'll stop gamma rays too!"
The servants all knew him, as he had often been there in his short cloak, and cap, and shoes with the wings, and with his curious staff which had two snakes twisted round it. He asked to see the King immediately, and Pluto, who had heard his voice from the top of the stairs, called out to him to come up at once, for he was always glad to listen to Mercury's cheery talk.
But it was necessary for one of us to be aloft to con the ship, and as it was obvious that the other two could not brace round the yards of a ship of the Mercury's size, we were no sooner free of our anchor than, although the ship was at the moment running off square before the wind, we sprang to the braces, and braced the yards sharp up on the port tack, in readiness for the negotiation of the reaches of which I have spoken.
Word Of The Day