A TALE OF A DRY PLATE.
I am a junior partner in a large mercantile house. Certain irregularities had occurred in our Colombo branch, and I was dispatched by the firm to investigate them, and to place matters on a more satisfactory footing. I need not go into details on this point, as they are irrelevant to my story.
I sailed by the Kaiser-i-Hind from Tilbury, accompanied by my valet. At the Liverpool Street terminus an elderly lady in widow's mourning asked me some questions as to the conveyance of luggage from the Tilbury station to the ship; she should have sent her luggage to the docks, but had omitted to do so. As I replied to her questions, I saw that she was accompanied by a very beautiful girl of eighteen. There is no need to beat about the bush—I fell in love with her, there and then. It is a commonplace way of putting it, but I don't know that I could make matters clearer by a more elaborate method of expression. As they and I travelled to Tilbury in the same compartment, we entered into conversation, as people will readily do who know that they are to travel many thousand miles together. I learnt that the lady was a Mrs. Selby, widow of a Colonel Selby, who had died about six
