URI 17 



" Tell me the story of your life." 



His eyes filled with tears, and a deep, pathetic 

 sigh was his only answer. 



" Let us be friends ; trust me, and tell me all your 

 troubles." 



Something rattles in his throat ; he chokes, tears 

 roll down his cheeks, he gasps for air. 



I make haste to open the window, for the room was 

 really very stuffy and smelt unpleasantly of mutton-fat. 



Ah ! at last the petrified guest opens his lips, and 

 gives an enormous sneeze. 



" Oh, please shut the window. I have a most 

 awful cold ! " 



"Give me the book, boy. I want to go on at 

 once ! " and like lightning I write " Curry and pops," 

 and in the margin for special remarks : " Food bad ; 

 everything tasted of mutton-fat, and one guest had a 

 bad cold in his head." 



"Very satisfied" was what Colonel and Mrs 

 Clifton-Brown had written just before me. Thus 

 do tastes differ, and according to the cold-in-the-head 

 so is man's opinion of things in general. 



I wonder what they are like, these Clifton- 

 Browns, whose curry remains I am always getting 

 dished up ? Colonel and Mrs Clifton-Brown ! 

 They already seem like old acquaintances to me in 

 this otherwise far-off, foreign country. Shall I ever 

 catch them up, and what will they be like ? Let us 

 hope without a cold in the head ! 



