this country had much to learn.)

The genial-minded Herbert had already acquired for himself the
reputation of being one who ceaselessly removes the gravity of others,
both by word and action, and from the first he selected this obscure
person for his charitable purpose to a most flattering extent. Not
only did he--on the pretext that his memory was rebellious--invariably
greet me as "Mr. Hong Kong," but on more than one occasion he
insisted, with mirth-provoking reference to certain details of my
unbecoming garments, that I must surely have become confused and sent
a Mrs. Hong Kong instead of myself, and frequently he undermined the
gravity of all most successfully by pulling me backwards suddenly by
the pigtail, with the plea that he imagined he was picking up his
riding-whip. This attractive person was always accompanied by a
formidable dog--of convex limbs, shrunken lip, and suspicious
demeanour--which he called Influenza, to the excessive amusement of
those to whom he related its characteristics. For some inexplicable
reason from the first it regarded my lower apparel as being unsuitable
for the ordinary occasions of life, and in spite of the low hissing
call by which its master endeavoured to attract its attention to
himself, it devoted its energies unceasingly to the self-imposed task
of removing them fragment by fragment. Nevertheless it was a dog of
favourable size and condition, and it need not therefore be a matter
for surprise that when the intellectual person Herbert took his
departure on the day in question it had to be assumed that it had
already preceded him. Having accomplished so much, this person found
little difficulty in preparing it tastefully in his own apartment,
and making the substitution on the following day.

Although his mind was confessedly enlarged at the success of his