Part 3 (1/2)
The proposal falling flat, he gathered the nearly empty bottles into one place and shouted for his boy to coed as he got up to leave us ”You er fool than me with you You'd need a doctor on a trip like that
I'm an expert on some of these tropical diseases Think it over!”
”Fred!” said Monty, as soon as the doctor had left the room, ”I'm tempted by this ivory of yours”
But Fred, in the new blue dressing-gown the doctor had brought, was in another world--a land of trope and key and metaphor For the last ten minutes he had kept a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper working, and now the strident tones of his too long neglected concertina stirred the heavy air and shocked the birds outside to silence The instrue the port authorities had done by way of disinfection, the bellows had been wetted when Fred plunged fro Bundesrath and swa as a good loud noise co resehed He looked like a drunken troubadour en deshabille, with those up-brushed mustaches and his usually neat brown beard all spread awry ”Tee at hinition than re since he tried to charm cholera victims in the Bundesrath's fo'castle, and, like the rest of us, he had his rights He sang with legs spread wide in front of him, and head thrown back, and, each ti it until we joined in
There's a prize that's full familiar from Zanzibar to France; From Tokio to Boston; we are paid it in advance
It's the wages of adventure, and the orld knows the feel Of the stuff that stirs good huntss the hounds to heel!
It's the one reward that's gratis and precedes the toilso always better than an opti, and it's never twice the saame!
CHORUS It is tem-tem-pitation!
The one sublime sensation!
You -do!
The reward the temptee cashes Is too often dust and ashes, But you'll need no spurs or lashes When teions to old Britain's distant isle, And it beckoned H M Stanley to the sources of the Nile; It's the one and only reason for the bristling guns at Gib, For the skeletons at Khartouentlemen adventurers braved torture for its sake, It beckoned out the galleons, and filled the hulls of Drake!
Oh, it sets the sails of coe of war, It's the sole excuse for churches, and the only cause of law!
CHORUS It is tem-tem-pitation! etc, etc
No note is there of failure (that's a tune the croakers sing!) This song's of youth, and strength, and health, and ti!
Of wealth beyond the hazy blue of far horizons flung-- But never of the folk returning, disillusioned, stung!
It's a tale of gold and ivory, of plunder out of reach, Of luck that fell to other men, of treasure on the beach-- A co tay double spell, The loeet lure to Heaven, and the tallyho to hell!
CHORUS It is tem-tem-pitation!
The one sublime sensation!
You -do!
It's the siren of to-ht of lack or sorrow, So you'll sell your bonds and borrow, When temptation beckons you!
Once Fred starts there is no stopping hih his ever lengthening list of songs, not all quite printable, until the very coral walls ached with the concertina's wailing, and our throats were hoarse from ridiculous choruses As Yerkes put it:
”When pa says sing, the rest of us sing too or go crazy!”
I went to theand tried to get a view of shi+pping through the o branches Masts and sails--lateen spars particularly--always get me by the throat and make me happy for a while But all I could see was a loall beyond the little coear of nearly all the kinds there are (Zanzibar is a wonderful market for second-hand clothes There was even a tall silk hat of not very ancient pattern)
”Come and look, Monty!” said I, and he and Yerkes ca his troubadour charm was broken, Fred snapped the catch on the concertina and ca Monty on the back