that you ought to say the Lord's Prayer backwards. Well, I

wondered if I could do that; it seemed rather a feat, you see.

And then I wondered if I would say it forward, and I thought I

did. Well, no sooner had I got to WORLD WITHOUT END, than I saw a

man in a pariu, and with a mat under his arm, come along the

beach from the town. He was rather a hard-favoured old party,

and he limped and crippled, and all the time he kept coughing. At

first I didn't cotton to his looks, I thought, and then I got

sorry for the old soul because he coughed so hard. I remembered

that we had some of that cough mixture the American consul gave

the captain for Hay. It never did Hay a ha'porth of service, but

I thought it might do the old gentleman's business for him, and

stood up. "Yorana!" says I. "Yorana!" says he. "Look here," I

said, "I've got some first-rate stuff in a bottle; it'll fix your

cough, savvy? Harry my and I'll measure you a tablespoonful in

the palm of my hand, for all our plate is at the bankers." So I

thought the old party came up, and the nearer he came, the less I

took to him. But I had passed my word, you see.'

'Wot is this bloomin' drivel?' interrupted the clerk. 'It's like

the rot there is in tracts.'

'It's a story; I used to tell them to the kids at home,' said

Herrick. 'If it bores you, I'll drop it.'

'O, cut along!' returned the sick man, irritably. 'It's better

than nothing.'

'Well,' continued Herrick, 'I had no sooner given him the

cough mixture than he seemed to straighten up and change, and

I saw he wasn't a Tahitian after all, but some kind of Arab, and

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