He Seems Intensely
Surprised To Find Me Sitting In His Friend The Planter's Parlour
After My Grim And Retiring Conduct On The Eclaireur On My Voyage Up.
But The Planter Tells Him All, Sousing Him In Torrents Of Words,
Full Of The Violence Of An Outbreak Of Pent-Up Emotion.
I do not
understand what he says, but I catch "tres inexplicable" and things
like that.
The calm brother of the engineer sits down at the table,
and I am sure tells the planter something like this: "Calm
yourself, my friend, we picked up this curiosity at Lembarene. It
seems quite harmless." And then the planter calmed, and mopped a
perspiring brow, and so did I, and we smiled more freely, feeling
the mental atmosphere had become less tense and cooler. We both
simply beamed on our deliverer, and the planter gave him lots of
things to drink. I had nothing about me except a head of tobacco in
my pocket, which I did not feel was a suitable offering. Now the
engineer's brother, although he would not own to it, knew English,
so I told him how the beauty of the road had lured me on, and how I
was interested in coffee-planting, and how much I admired the
magnificence of this plantation, and all the enterprise and energy
it represented.
"Oui, oui, certainement," said he, and translated. My friend the
planter seemed charmed; it was the first sign of anything
approaching reason he had seen in me.
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