Sample of some Gentleman's Autobiography. 25 



had but to shake a cudgel, with which he used to belabour the hyaenas when 

 they quarrelled. With eyes of such splendid power, a voice to express 

 her sentiments would have been superfluous : like music, they spoke 

 all languages. She taught me the alphabet of the hands, and the first 

 use I made of my new acquirement, was to declare my passion. In- 

 toxicated with her charms, I madly shewed her my money. She looked 

 like a hungry tigress at the unexpected sight of a fawn. Her beau- 

 tiful fingers vibrated, as it were, with such emotion, that I pocketed the 

 notes again, lest they should be clutched, and resolved to let the charm 

 work its effect, at leisure. That night she told Gideon of my proposals, 

 and, to obtain the money, conspired with him to murder me. 



I heard the Albino incoherently soliloquizing about it, while he was 

 curry-combing his dromedary j and the fascinating Juno was tempting 

 the boa to resume its appetite, after a six weeks' fast, with a pair of lively 

 pullets. When he began I am certain of this I was fast asleep, and 

 his words had dropped upon my ear, opportunely, with the current of a 

 bad dream, the horrors of which at length awoke me. Had I not been 

 so deeply interested, I should scarcely have made out the meaning of his 

 growls 5 as it was, their meaning was awfully clear to me. 



We had halted for the night on a dreary common, far from human 

 habitation, and, as usual, carried out an awning in front of the caravan, 

 to shelter the dromedary and our team. The box which contained 

 the boa, stood close to the only place of egress, athwart which, 

 beneath the awning, reposed the dromedary. I was lying by the 

 side of the young elephant, at the other end of the caravan, so that 

 it was impossible for me to get out without passing the giantess and 

 her Dutch Hercules, either of whom, as an animal, was much more 

 than a match for me. Gideon seemed exceedingly wroth at my attempt 

 to despoil him of his Juno, besides whom, nothing, he said, loved him, 

 except those hyaenas that he so frequently cudgelled. I did all in my 

 power to continue my snore, but it was a difficult matter, for I wished to 

 listen, breathless, to his dire mutterings. He had made up his mind that I 

 must have come by the money dishonestly, and that therefore it was no 

 sin to get out of my clutches. At one time he seemed to think of digging 

 a grave under the awning, laying me gently in it, and then smothering 

 me, might and main, with the mould. That plan, however, he soon 

 rejected, because I might awake in the course of its execution. He then 

 exclaimed against the boa, and said, if she had any gratitude or sense, she 

 might easily make amends for having exposed him to the payment of a 

 deodand the result of a coroner's inquest on a boy whom the reptile had 

 killed a month before. " If one could but coax her only just to look at 

 a pullet," he intimated rather than said in totidem verbis, " I would thrust 

 the vagabond's thumb into her mouth, and the needful might be done 

 without risk or trouble. She'd curl round him like a live cable : but the 

 brute is not in a feeding humour yet." His mind then wandered tp the 

 rattlesnakes which he had recently bought, but, as he said, if he put them 

 by my side, they would, perhaps, creep harmlessly into my bosom for 

 warmth and not bite, unless he pinched them by the tail a mode of 

 transacting business which he could not approve, inasmuch as it would 

 be tantamount to killing with his own hands besides, they might turn 

 and nab him, or, instead of me, destroy his elephant. For his own part 

 he abhorred blood 5 Juno, however, had no repugnance, he felt sure, to 



