CHAPTER III. 



(something more about the isle of wight.) 



SS^^l' ^"^» Your Representative, having purchased a 

 ^ffsl^mf^! ready-made yachting suit, with a straw hat 

 5ffl^J j labelled (on the riband) Elvh'a (the man wanted 

 ^^^^j[j to palm off on me one with Magnetia on it, but 

 I was not to be taken in), felt myself quite the Yachtsman 

 among the Dukes, Princes, Monseigneurs, Duchesses, Lords 

 and Ladies, who crowd the one narrow street and the shore. 

 Why do I, as representing You, Sir, prefer, far prefer, the 

 gay and genuine nobility of Cowes, to the sixty-per-cent 

 foreign Barons at Brighton ? Why ? Because I like the real 

 Earls and Countesses, but shrink from the sham Counts with 

 their Discountesses. If I am to be a Snob, let me be a 

 Yachting Snob. Belay ! shiver my marlinspikes ! and 

 avast there ! For an instant I forgot that the individual 

 must be -merged, nay obliterated in The Representative. 



You can always avoid loneliness at Covves, even if you are 

 there quite alone and knowing no one, by speaking to the 

 Signalman at the R. Y. S. Club-house, known as " The 

 Castle." He is civil ; not too civil, and reckons you up in 

 no time. This is very clever on his part, as he never looks 

 at you while talking, being always occupied with conning 



