When at last he stood up in all his glory, even down to the
medals on his breast, and contemplated himself in the still waters
of the lake, after the fashion of the young gentleman in ancient
history, whose name I cannot remember, but who fell in love with
his own shadow, the old Zulu could no longer restrain his feelings.
'Oh, Bougwan!' he said. 'Oh, Bougwan! I always thought thee
an ugly little man, and fat -- fat as the cows at calving time;
and now thou art like a blue jay when he spreads his tail out.
Surely, Bougwan, it hurts my eyes to look at thee.'
Good did not much like this allusion to his fat, which, to tell
the truth, was not very well deserved, for hard exercise had
brought him down three inches; but on the whole he was pleased
at Umslopogaas's admiration. As for Alphonse, he was quite delighted.
'Ah! but Monsieur has the beautiful air -- the air of the warrior.
It is the ladies who will say so when we come to get ashore.
Monsieur is complete; he puts me in mind of my heroic grand --'
Here we stopped Alphonse.
As we gazed upon the beauties thus revealed by Good, a spirit
of emulation filled our breasts, and we set to work to get ourselves
up as well as we could. The most, however, that we were able
to do was to array ourselves in our spare suits of shooting clothes,
of which we each had several, all the fine clothes in the world
could never make it otherwise than scrubby and insignificant;
but Sir Henry looked what he is, a magnificent man in his nearly
new tweed suit, gaiters, and boots.
Pages:
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204