inquiringly. Always slightly unconvinced, they seemed to have no inward
desire to laugh, but yielded politely to the requirements, owing to the
niggers' harlequin costume and blackened face.

To the student of human nature there is nothing so exquisitely
ridiculous on the face of the globe as the typical British audience, at
a show which appeals humourously to the intellect rather than to the
eye. For this reason the Princetonians were indefatigable in their
conversation with the niggers, for the electric lights of the _Lulu_
illuminated the faces of our audience, which soon, in addition to the
strolling craft of the river, numbered many canoes from the neighbouring
house-boats, who were attracted by the gaiety and lights, thus forming a
typical river audience, thoroughly mixed, seemingly on pleasure bent,
good humoured, well behaved, polite, stolid, British.

Jimmie is hospitable to the core of his being, and nothing pleased him
better than to keep "open house-boat" for the entire floating population
of the Thames during Henley week. Every afternoon it was particularly
the custom about tea time for boats containing music hall quartettes or
a boatload of Geisha girls to pull up in front of the house-boat and
regale the occupants with the latest music hall songs.

In one end of their boat is a little melodion apparently built for river
travel, for I never saw one anywhere else. They have in addition velvet
collection-boxes on long poles whereby to reach the upper decks of the
house-boat for our coins. These things look for all the world like the
old-fashioned collection-boxes which the deacons used to pass in church.

There was one set of Geisha girls who were masked below the eyes, one of
whom sang what she fondly imagined was a typical American song