These
dreams grew, till they were broken by a hand placed on my shoulder, and I
saw that one of the passengers, Clovelly, an English novelist, had
dropped out from the promenade to talk with me. He saw my mood, however,
and said quietly: "Give me a light for my cigar, will you? Then, astride
this stool, I'll help you to make inventory of the rest of them. A pretty
study; for, at our best, 'What fools we mortals be!'"
"'Motley is your only wear,'" was my reply; and for a full half-hour,
which, even for a man, is considerable, we spoke no word, but only nodded
when some one of the promenaders noticed us. There was a bookmaker fresh
from the Melbourne races; an American, Colonel Ryder, whose eloquence had
carried him round the world; a stalwart squatter from Queensland; a
pretty widow, who had left her husband under the sods of Tasmania; a
brace of girls going to join their lovers and be married in England; a
few officers fleeing from India with their livers and their lives; a
family of four lanky lasses travelling "home" to school; a row of affable
ladies, who alternated between envy and gaiety and delight in, and
criticism of, their husbands; a couple of missionaries, preparing to give
us lectures on the infamous gods of the heathen,--gods which, poor
harmless little creatures! might be bought at a few annas a pint at Aden
or Colombo,--and on the Exodus and the Pharaohs--pleasures reserved for
the Red Sea; a commercial traveller, who arranged theatricals, and cast
himself for all the principal parts; a humorous and naive person who
industriously hinted at the opulence of his estates in Ireland; two
stately English ladies of title; a cheerful array of colonial knights and
judges off to Europe for a holiday; and many others, who made little
worlds unto themselves, called cliques by blunt people.
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