第85章 I MEET A CHEERFUL EXTRAVAGANT(2)

'We shall go out to supper, you incorrigible female!' I vowed, between laughter and tears.'Here - this is going to end! I want you for a landlady - let me tell you that! - and I am going to have my way.You won't tell me what you charge? Very well; I will do without! I can trust you! You don't seem to know when you have a good lodger; but I know perfectly when I have an honest landlady!

Rowley, unstrap the valises!'

Will it be credited? The monomaniac fell to rating me for my indiscretion! But the battle was over; these were her last guns, and more in the nature of a salute than of renewed hostilities.

And presently she condescended on very moderate terms, and Rowley and I were able to escape in quest of supper.Much time had, however, been lost; the sun was long down, the lamps glimmered along the streets, and the voice of a watchman already resounded in the neighbouring Leith Road.On our first arrival I had observed a place of entertainment not far off, in a street behind the Register House.Thither we found our way, and sat down to a late dinner alone.But we had scarce given our orders before the door opened, and a tall young fellow entered with something of a lurch, looked about him, and approached the same table.

'Give you good evening, most grave and reverend seniors!' said he.

'Will you permit a wanderer, a pilgrim - the pilgrim of love, in short - to come to temporary anchor under your lee? I care not who knows it, but I have a passionate aversion from the bestial practice of solitary feeding!'

'You are welcome, sir,' said I, 'if I may take upon me so far to play the host in a public place.'

He looked startled, and fixed a hazy eye on me, as he sat down.

'Sir,' said he, 'you are a man not without some tincture of letters, I perceive! What shall we drink, sir?'

I mentioned I had already called for a pot of porter.

'A modest pot - the seasonable quencher?' said he.'Well, I do not know but what I could look at a modest pot myself! I am, for the moment, in precarious health.Much study hath heated my brain, much walking wearied my - well, it seems to be more my eyes!'

'You have walked far, I dare say?' I suggested.

'Not so much far as often,' he replied.'There is in this city -

to which, I think, you are a stranger? Sir, to your very good health and our better acquaintance! - there is, in this city of Dunedin, a certain implication of streets which reflects the utmost credit on the designer and the publicans - at every hundred yards is seated the Judicious Tavern, so that persons of contemplative mind are secure, at moderate distances, of refreshment.I have been doing a trot in that favoured quarter, favoured by art and nature.A few chosen comrades - enemies of publicity and friends to wit and wine - obliged me with their society."Along the cool, sequestered vale of Register Street we kept the uneven tenor of our way," sir.'

'It struck me, as you came in - ' I began.

'O, don't make any bones about it!' he interrupted.'Of course it struck you! and let me tell you I was devilish lucky not to strike myself.When I entered this apartment I shone "with all the pomp and prodigality of brandy and water," as the poet Gray has in another place expressed it.Powerful bard, Gray! but a niminy-