looking, sickly-speaking young lions come
in with news of the flag-staff; at the theatre
it is whispered round; at parade it is
talked of in dumb language. It is to Gibraltar
what "the weather" is to London, and "the
turnips" are to the country.

So now as Major Macgillicuddy of the
mounted Bombardiers, comes panting in
to say, the P. and O. steamer Tagus is
passing Europa Point, the soup is forgotten,
and there is a rush to the howitzer. Yes, even
Fluker, though caring nothing about the
Tagus, and knowing that the Tagus cares
nothing for us, runs out with the card of signals
that hangs in the hall of the hotel in his
hands.

Make haste; more doing at the staff—two
red balls hauled down again—now one black,
then one white—then one down and the other
up: two red, that means, "Beef-boat from
Tangiers just arrived"—one black—"followed
by steamer;" white—"English steamer,"—
and last, flourish of black and white together,
which being interpreted means that "it is
the Tagus from Southampton, with mails."
Hurrah! says all Gibraltar, all looking as
we are—then we shall have letters—cheques
for young ensigns unlucky at the green cloth
—and with scores at the Gilt Grapes—billets
for colonels' daughters, sighing for the Row
and the rowers—news of children to mothers,
and of mothers to children,—news of deaths
that will make men smile and look happy,—
news of deaths that will, with a strong hand,
suddenly squeeze the heart dry as a wrung-
out sponge;—so runs the world away. The
scuttle of feet down to the Water Port Gate
to see who have come by the steamer, is
audible to fancy's ear, as we turn satiated of
news to our soup, that offended at our neglect
has turned cold.

The table is remarkable for having more
silver than meat on it, a peculiarity not
unusual at showy hotel dinners. There is much
napkin and little comfort; many servants, and
few dishes; a characteristic of the climate
is the uncarpeted floor, the open but thickly
blinded windows, which seem to lure in the
sun and turn the place into a furnace, now
that the irritable hot wind is blowing. The
stale fruit and fossil pastry is covered with
blue gauze covers, ugly and deforming on a
dinner table as blue spectacles on a white
man's face. We have no band to play for us,
but the gnats at intervals give us the "Dead
March in Saul," gratis, and we pay them
with the Genii's blessings, which are curses.
Their music is as of the March wind confessing
its crimes through a melancholy man's
keyhole.

I can hardly get on with my roast fowl,
and water-cresses, for watching Major
Macgillicuddy doing battle with the mosquitoes.
They have been attending on and tapping him
for thirty years, and yet he and they are not
yet on real terms of intimacy. Now and then
he repeats what I suppose are prayers to
himself, as he brushes them from his damask
cheeks; now he flings down his knife and
fork, and strikes out at them right and left,
as if he were mobbed by Spanish bravos.
They are irritating, and I sympathise with
him; but still it is ludicrous to see a big ogre
of a man doing angry battle with such tiny
and all but invisible adversaries, though they
are as troublesome and invisible as the
mischief-makers and scandal-mongers of the
world, and about as invulnerable to blows.

If you listen abstractedly to the conversation,
there is only one observation in which
everybody seems to agree, and that is one
that runs round the table like fire through
dry grass. "There is no place like England,"
another way of saying, "there are
no people like the English;" which means
No people like ourselves; without us I feel
the world would be a dunghill. Now the
Major, a hero with mosquitoes, a bully with
inferiors, a toady with superiors, I should
say is busy hob-nobbing, in choice Saint Jullien,
with two young officers in full scarlet,
admirably adapted to a sun almost African, with
crimson webby sash and bullion epaulettes,
who being on duty in the square adjoining,
have thought it their duty to come and have
a "blow out " at the table d'hôte. They are
affable and condescending, as English officers
always are with strangers, talk loud, ogle the
ladies, sneer at everyone else, and show
themselves perfect men of the world, by
ostentatiously and unmistakeably despising the world
of which they are men. They take off their drab
felt wide-awakes, bandaged with muslin
turbans, and fling them on a tray of wine-glasses
on a side table. They whip off their unused
swords and belts, and clash them up to a nail,
with the practised skill of diners-out. They
then, first of all, with defiant duelling glances,
turn up their eyes, pull down their bat's-wing,
espalier, gummed whiskers, furl up their
moustachios out of way of the soup, and
begin with an ease that a severe man would
rather call impudence than ease. Their
conversation is by gasps, as if their intellect was
secreted in homœopathic drops, and was to be
used carefully, like an expensive cordial not
easily replaced.

As for Fluker, he is busy discussing with
an old wine-merchant the merits of Colares, a
cheap chesnut-coloured wine that is to be
had for nothing abroad, and sold for a good
deal in England; a sort of wine eventually to
be sold as a "high quality sherry," and many
lies told over by sham connoisseurs of spurious
vintages. There is much babble as to whether
the wine has lost its body or not. Some one
says it never had any; others say it still has
a good deal. My conviction is, that no one
present but the old wine-merchant knows
Colares from quinine, but I do not say so.
What a very curious thing it is that human
nature, when it hears anybody talking about
wine, must hold its glass immediately up to
the light, as if forming some intensely wise