The Argosy — page 147: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Day at Malta. 135 It was useless. He was evidently hen-pecked, and had to submit’ From the other side the old lady glared at us for full five minutes. Mauleverer quietly ordered another supply of the golden beverage, and she looked as if she would like to punish him by pouring it into the sea and sending him after it. Had he been her better-half, no doubt this might have happened. ‘Is marriage a failure?” he whispered ; and if the old lady had heard him, I doubt if his life would have been worth an hour’s purchase. This lady, from her imposing turban, her conscious air of being much wiser than her neighbours, and her magisterial way of laying down the law, had become “ Minerva” to all on board, after the second day’s sailing. As we took our seats this morning, Minerva turned all the colours of the rainbow. Her hair bristled and her turban trembled. She glared at our breakfast cups, as if to ask whether they would share the fate of the overturned glass; and she gathered her skirts about her, and called her husband’s attention to their perilous position. This morming her gro dono conversation was all about servants ; chiefly English servants. They were all as bad as they could be. She wouldn’t trust one of them. The women all ran after the soldiers, and the soldiers were the most demoralised and demoralising set of men on the face of the globe. If the women were pretty they were no better than they ought to be, and if they were ugly they had unbearable tempers. ‘Thank goodness she was going back to Malta. There if a soldier only came in sight of her territories, he had seven | days’ cell and a month’s extra drill for his pains. Her husband was @ magistrate, and there was a power behind the throne, etc. etc. Next to her sat a lady who had amused us all through the voyage. Mauleverer called her Miss Lydia Languish, though she must have been well on in the forties, and might have passed very well for Miss Lydia’s mamma. She posed and attitudinised all day long as if she were studying for Tableaux Vivants, and her upnght airs and graces were an excellent foil to the Australian lady as she reclined in her opossum rugs and flashed her rings in the sunlight. Though apart from her little airs, which after all some people would have called pretty, the Australian was really very nice. But Miss Languish was not nice, and her chief characteristic was her propensity for using all the long words contained in the dictionary with very little regard to quantity or meaning: so that to the virtues of the above-mentioned lady she added those of the no less celebrated Mrs. Malaprop. This morning she had very little opportunity of indulging in her affection for long words—or short ones either. Minerva had possession of the ball of conversation and kept it. Miss C., the judge’s daughter, sat next to me, and her father came next to her. ** So glad you have joined us!” cried Minerva to Miss C., as the latter took her seat at the table. COnmicloooel —_— SS (CO 3 i < { "