flageolet was gone wrong, and I had to take it all to pieces,
clean it, and put it up again. As this is a most intricate
job - the thing dissolves into seventeen separate members,
most of these have to be fitted on their individual springs
as fine as needles, and sometimes two at once with the
springs shoving different ways - it took me till two. Then
Lloyd and I rode forth on our errands; first to Motootua,
where we had a really instructive conversation on weeds and
grasses. Thence down to Apia, where we bought a fresh bottle
of chlorodyne and conversed on politics.

My visit to the King, which I thought at the time a
particularly nugatory and even schoolboy step, and only
consented to because I had held the reins so tight over my
little band before, has raised a deuce of a row - new
proclamation, no one is to interview the sacred puppet
without consuls' permission, two days' notice, and an
approved interpreter - read (I suppose) spy. Then back; I
should have said I was trying the new horse; a tallish
piebald, bought from the circus; he proved steady and safe,
but in very bad condition, and not so much the wild Arab
steed of the desert as had been supposed. The height of his
back, after commodious Jack, astonished me, and I had a great
consciousness of exercise and florid action, as I posted to
his long, emphatic trot. We had to ride back easy; even so
he was hot and blown; and when we set a boy to lead him to
and fro, our last character for sanity perished. We returned
just neat for dinner; and in the evening our violinist
arrived, a young lady, no great virtuoso truly, but plucky,
industrious, and a good reader; and we played five pieces