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The Club and its members Gugga Irregularities of time The absence of the gentle muse and our surprise The musician's story and his subsequent fate The Black Earth A typical border house The ordeal of infancy A realistic performance which is misunderstood Concerning a memorable drive A fervent prayer. Before we leave Podgorica for good our readers must be introduced to the Club.

At first we met in the garden of one Petri, a good-tempered giant of about six feet eight inches, but in spite of our patronage he managed to ruin himself at cards and so we were forced to adjourn to an old Albanian rascal named Gugga. What fun we had with that dear old boy, whom we irreverently called Skenderbeg!

Gugga kept a big shop, and when irritated by a customer he had a regular formula which loses much of its wit when translated, as it rhymes in Serb. The humble Montenegrin is remarkably feminine in the way he shops. He will spend half an hour in the store examining everything with great curiosity. At last he will ask the price of a certain article.

But other evenings we were merry, and many were the wonderful stories of adventure told over bottled beer and an extraordinary salad which old Gugga mixed before us to make an appetite, as he said. We got to love Podgorica in the end, and left its streets, full of gaudy-coloured humanity, the old shot-riddled town across the river, and the glorious mountain panorama, with sorrow.

Gugga, whose choler has been slowly rising during his customer's long and tiring inspection, gives a purposely indistinct answer, whereupon the Montenegrin will inquire "What does he say?" Gugga, furious at being spoken to in the third person, turns savagely upon the astonished Montenegrin saying "What dost thou say? What dost thou mean? What stinks here? Get out, ass and son of an ass."