There was another side to this merry little Professor. We had on board
the vivacious and tuneful Miss Grace Palotta, who was making a
concert-tour round the world. Miss Palotta, whose charming personality
will be remembered by the frequenters of the old Gaiety Theatre, was a
Viennese by birth, and she sang those tuneful, airy little Viennese
songs, known as "Wiener Couplets," to perfection. She readily
consented to give a concert on board, but said she must be sustained
by a chorus. Dr. Munro himself selected, trained and led the chorus;
whilst I had to replace Miss Palotta's accompanist who was prostrate
with sea-sickness.

And so the big liner crept on slowly into steaming, oily, pale-green
seas, gliding between vividly green islands in the orchid-house
temperature of the Malay Peninsula, a part of the world worth
visiting, if only to eat the supremely delicious mangosteen, though
even an unlimited diet of this luscious fruit would hardly reconcile
the average person to a perpetual steam bath, and to an intensely
enervating atmosphere. Nature must have been in a sportive mood when
she evolved the durian. This singular Malay fruit smells like all the
concentrated drains of a town seasoned with onions. One single durian
can poison out a ship with its hideous odour, yet those able to
overcome its revolting smell declare the flavour of the fruit to be
absolutely delicious.

It is a little humiliating for a middle-aged gentleman to find that on
arriving in China he is expected to revert to the language of the
nursery, and that he must request his Chinese servant to "go catchee
me one piecee cuppee tea." On board the Admiral's yacht, it required a
little reflection before the intimation that "bleakfast belong leady