Mr. Hudson,
Agent-General, And Mr. Cockshut, Agent For The Ogowe, Walk Up And
Down The Beach In Front, Doubtless Talking Cargo, Apparently
Unconscious Of Mosquitoes; But By And By, While We Are Having
Dinner, They Get Their Share.
I behave exquisitely, and am quite
lost in admiration of my own conduct, and busily deciding in my own
Mind whether I shall wear one of those plain ring haloes, or a solid
plate one, a la Cimabue, when Mr. Hudson says in a voice full of
reproach to Mr. Cockshut, "You have got mosquitoes here, Mr.
Cockshut." Poor Mr. Cockshut doesn't deny it; he has got four on
his forehead and his hands are sprinkled with them, but he says:
"There are none at Njole," which we all feel is an absurdly lame
excuse, for Njole is some ninety miles above Lembarene, where we now
are. Mr. Hudson says this to him, tersely, and feeling he has
utterly crushed Mr. Cockshut, turns on me, and utterly failing to
recognise me as a suffering saint, says point blank and savagely,
"You don't seem to feel these things, Miss Kingsley." Not feel
them, indeed! Why, I could cry over them. Well! that's all the
thanks one gets for trying not to be a nuisance in this world.
After dinner I go back on to the Move for the night, for it is too
late to go round to Kangwe and ask Mme. Jacot, of the Mission
Evangelique, if she will take me in.
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