MEIN HERR unrolled the manuscript, but, to my great surprise, instead of reading it, he began to sing it, in a rich mellow voice that seemed to ring through the room.
‘One thousand pounds per annum Is not so bad a figure, come!’
Cried Tottles. ‘And I tell you, flat, A man may marry well on that!
To say "the Husband needs the Wife"
Is not the way to represent it.
The crowning joy of Woman’s life Is Man!’ said Tottles (and he meant it).
The blissful Honey-moon is past:
The Pair have settled down at last:
Mamma-in-law their home will share, And make their happiness her care.
‘Your income is an ample one:
Go it, my children!’ (And they went it).
‘I rayther think this kind of fun Wo’n’t last!’ said Tottles (and he meant it).
They took a little country-box—
A box at Covent Garden also:
They lived a life of double-knocks, Acquaintances began to call so:
Their London house was much the same (It took three hundred, clear, to rent it):
‘Life is a very jolly game!’
Cried happy Tottles (and he meant it).
‘Contented with a frugal lot’
(He always used that phrase at Gunter’s), He bought a handy little yacht—
A dozen serviceable hunters—
The fishing of a Highland Loch—
A sailing-boat to circumvent it—
‘The sounding of that Gaelic "och"
Beats me!’ said Tottles (and he meant it).
Here, with one of those convulsive starts that wake one up in the very act of dropping off to sleep, I became conscious that the deep musical tones that thrilled me did not belong to Mein Herr, but to the French Count. The old man was still conning the manuscript.
‘I beg your pardon for keeping you waiting!’ he said. ‘I was just making sure that I knew the English for all the words. I am quite ready now.’ And he read me the following Legend:
‘In a city that stands in the very centre of Africa, and is rarely visited by the casual tourist, the people had always bought eggs—a daily necessary in a climate where egg-flip was the usual diet—from a Merchant who came to their gates once a week.
And the people always bid wildly against each other: so there was quite a lively auction every time the Merchant came, and the last egg in his basket used to fetch the value of two or three camels, or thereabouts. And eggs got dearer every week. And still they drank their egg-flip, and wondered where all their money went to.
‘And there came a day when they put their heads together. And they understood what donkeys they had been.