contrived to discover that we were on the point of going to dine, and
so invited him to share our humble meal, as a graceful way of making
a virtue of necessity, for had we not done so, he would have had no
hesitation in inviting himself. During dinner, conversation, of
course, turned upon one all-engrossing subject, the war, and the
Colonel proceeded to give us his experiences of former wars,
including his adventures in the Crimea, and the miraculous escape he
owed to an Umbrella.

It appeared that he had gone out with his friend, Lord Levant, on a
yachting excursion in the Mediterranean, and they eventually found
their way into the Black Sea. Stress of weather compelled them to put
into the little port of Yalta, on the north coast, where they went on
shore. The Colonel, on the Lucretian principle of "Suave mari magno,"
&c., proceeded the next morning to the verge of the precipice to
observe the magnificent prospect of a sea running mountains high. As
it was raining at the time, he put up a huge gingham Umbrella he
happened to find in the hotel. Suddenly, however, a furious blast of
wind drove across the cliff, and lifted the Colonel bodily in the
air. Away he flew far out to sea, the Umbrella acting as a Parachute
to let him fall easy.

Now to most men this would only have been a choice of evils, a
progress from Scylla to Charybdis: not so to our Colonel. On coming
up to the surface after his first dip, he found that swimming would
not save him; so he quietly emptied out the water contained in the
Umbrella, seated himself upon it, and sailed triumphantly into the
harbour, like Arion on his dolphin.

Our face, on hearing this anecdote, must have betrayed the