I admired him immensely for not having given me away. Only a man could have kept a secret like that when everybody was wanting to know it. A woman would have told it to everyone she met all in the strictest confidence, you know—not out of malice a bit, but simply out of sheer impossibility to keep a secret. The momentary importance gained by imparting eagerly desired news is so very pleasant. Don't think I'm too hard on my own sex. I don't say anything against them in general that I wouldn't say against myself in particular. I admit I find it hard to keep a secret, and just hoard up news that nobody else knows and everybody wants to know. And don't think I'm praising up the opposite sex. It isn't strength of mind that enables a man to keep a secret. It's simply the fact that the desire to tell isn't a part of his nature. Anyway, I advise everybody not on any account to have their clothes marked with their names in full.
We drew near Bombay at last. I was heartily sick of the journey. I was just about getting to feel that I had a right-down horrible nature. A great loathing for my fellow-creatures, of which I had never suspected myself capable, had sprung up within me. To have seen the 'Pompous Man' prance up and down the deck before you a hundred times a day for a whole fortnight; to have shared a cabin with Mrs. Simpkin-Briston—not to speak of Lady Manifold and Marjory, who in all conscience were trying enough; to have had to put oneself to horrible inconveniences to escape the authoress and other atrocious bores; to have seen Boy falling
