One evening I returned at the appointed gong-stroke of dinner, and was
beginning, according to my custom, to greet the hound with
ingratiating politeness, when the one of chief authority held up a
reproving hand, at the same time exclaiming:

"No, Mr. Kong, you must not encourage Hercules with your amiable
condescension, for just now he is in very bad odour with us all."

"Undoubtedly," replied this person, somewhat puzzled, nevertheless,
that the imperfection should thus be referred to openly by one who
hitherto had not hesitated to caress the hound with most intimate
details, "undoubtedly the surrounding has a highly concentrated
acuteness to-night, but the ever-present characteristic of the hound
Hercules is by no means new, for whenever he is in the room--"

At this point it is necessary to explain that the ceremonial etiquette
of these barbarian outcasts is both conflicting and involved. Upon
most of the ordinary occasions of life to obtrude oneself within the
conversation of another is a thing not to be done, yet repeatedly when
this unpretentious person has been relating his experience or
inquiring into the nature and meaning of certain matters which he has
witnessed, he has become aware that his words have been obliterated,
as it were, and his remarks diverted from their original intention by
the sudden and unanticipated desire of those present to express
themselves loudly on some topic of not really engrossing interest. Not
infrequently on such occasions every one present has spoken at once
with concentrated anxiety upon the condition of the weather, the
atmosphere of the room, the hour of the day, or some like detail of
contemptible inferiority. At other times maidens of unquestionable
politeness have sounded instruments of brass or stringed woods with