Essays on Life 



without profanity. I always keep tea by me 

 in case they should ask for it in the night, and 

 I have an Etna to warm it for them; they 

 take milk and sugar. The old white-headed 

 clergyman came to see them last night; it 

 was very painful, for Jocko reminded him so 

 strongly of his late . . . ' 



I thought she was going to say " wife," but 

 it proved to have been only of a parrot that 

 he had once known and loved. 



One evening she was in difficulties about 

 the quarantine, which was enforced that year 

 on the Italian frontier. The local doctor had 

 gone down that morning to see the Italian 

 doctor and arrange some details. " Then, 

 perhaps, my dear," she said to her husband, 

 " he is the quarantine." " No, my love," re- 

 plied her husband. " The quarantine is not 

 a person, it is a place where they put people " ; 

 but she would not be comforted, and suspected 

 the quarantine as an enemy that might at any 

 moment pounce out upon her and her parrots. 

 So a lady told me once that she had been in 

 like trouble about the anthem. She read in 



her prayer-book that in choirs and places 



38 



