THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



his behaviour is stamped with self-respect and good breeding. 

 Nevertheless, he is eaten up with self-admiration, and, when 

 he thinks nobody is looking, behaves like a fool, attitudiniz- 

 ing and conversing with himself like Malvolio. But in public 

 he is decorum itself. He sets his face, too, like a flint, against 

 every form of vice, and is the abhorrence of the mungoose, 

 the wild cat, and all the criminal classes. 



On one of the beams of the roof is a meek turtle-dove 

 that coos patiently, so that his spouse may hear him as she 

 sits upon her two white eggs in (of all places for a nest!) the 

 prickly pear hedge. Their nest, consisting of three short 

 twigs and a long one, was first built on one of the rafters, 

 but it was dissipated by that painted iniquity, the squirrel, 

 out and out the most shameless ruffian that haunts the 

 house. See him lying flat on his, belly upon the stone step, 

 crunching a crust of bread, stolen of course. This is tiffin. 

 For breakfast he had a dozen or two of the tender shoots 

 of the convolvulus which I have been pruning and watering 

 to make it grow. And his conscience does not trouble 

 him ! He should die the death if I could make up my 

 mind what manner of death would best befit his crimes. 

 Of all my guests there is not one more dainty, or more mo- 

 dest (with so much to be vain of), than the hoopoe, which 



