The Argosy — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

56 The Channel Islands. for the moment ina fool’s paradise, deluded souls dreaming of heaven. Next to the elderly comfortable couple came another newly-married pair, who in the public drawing-room mistook their honeymoon for their days of courtship, and made love to each other in a manner that not even the twilight could conceal or the shades of night excuse. Opposite them sat a French lady and gentleman, who, like many of their countrymen, began their breakfast every morning with bottled beer. It might truly be said that their presence filled the room. Another remarkable personage was a specimen who puzzled us not a little. One thing appeared certain ; either he had been insane or he was about to become so. He was generally known by the sobriquet of the Bear. The title was well applied. His manners were an apo- -— —_—— - = — —. linha! il ‘My hi >» aS Sh - ~~ logy for the word. His frown would have terrified Medusa. The waiters trembled at his tones. We speculated as to what he had been, or was, or would become, finally deciding that he must be a very rough specimen of a Cape diamond seeker, or an Australian bush- ranger. And I do not think we were far wrong. Every night during our stay in Jersey did this curious and mixed assemblage afford us infinite entertainment. It was a study of human nature under varied forms. ‘The comic element prevailed ; comical, at least, to us; but the grotesque was there also, the sentimental, and, perhaps, the ridiculous. Yet the traits of each particular set were so marked and startling, that the commonplace was quite absent. I think we looked forward to that one hour of the twenty-four with as much interest as we did to any other. It was a change and contrast after a day spent amidst the beauties of nature: the crescent bays, where plashed and murmured all that exquisite sea, with its Eomichbooks (E(0)