Ill 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
197 
The girls were full of life, and amused us all with their 
nai've and original sayings. The aunt was a very 
starchy spinster, of the “ prunes and prism ” variety, 
with a mouth always in the first position. A British 
matron sat in silent dignity next her good-natured, 
wealthy, ship-owning husband, of whom she seemed 
proud, though she failed to imitate his urbanity. A 
rheumatic farmer carried a liberal sample of his own soil 
about his person ; a man sat beside him who was 
afterwards so continually popping up again on our 
travels that he merits a more lengthy description. 
He was my travelling companion of the day before, 
a little German Jew, a doctor by profession, and he 
was here partly for his health, I imagined, and with 
the most laudable desire for information was taking 
snap-shots and notes after the manner of the immortal 
Mr. Pickwick, whom he resembled in another way — - 
he was very fat. His credulity was unbounded, — he 
believed everything that was told him, and put it all 
down in his note-book with the utmost gravity. He 
carried an immense brown bag, and whenever he 
wanted anything out of it that thing was certain to 
be at the bottom ; and to find it, the little man 
invariably turned out the entire contents upon the 
floor of any room or place where he might be ; we 
thus became intimately acquainted with his belongings, 
and I could describe to a nicety his entire wardrobe, 
so often was it distributed into its component parts 
before my reluctant eyes. He was writing a book, 
he said, and I have often longed to see it, and its 
marvellous stock of traveller’s tales. 
The two English tourists wish they were elsewhere, 
and the newly -married couple coo and cast sidelong 
glances at each other, much to the amusement of two 
black-eyed amusing little children, daughters of a book- 
