For Bingen--so?
_Culch. I_ am. This gentleman gets off--is it Bacharach or Maintz,
PODBURY?
_Podb._ (_sulkily_). Neither, as it happens. I'm for Bingen, too, as
you won't go anywhere else. Though you _did_ say when we started, that
the advantage of travelling like this was that we could go on or stop
just as the fancy took us!
_Culch._ (_calmly_). I did, my dear PODBURY. But it never occurred to
me that the fancy would take you to get tired of a place before you
got there!
_Podb._ (_as he walks forwards_). Hang that fellow! I know I shall
punch his head some day. And She didn't seem to care whether I stayed
or not. (_Hopefully._) But you never _can_ tell with women!
[_He returns to his camp-stool and the letter-reading Old
Ladies._
* * * * *
A SONG IN SEASON.
'Twas the autumn time, dear love,
The English autumn weather;
And, oh, it was sweet, it was hard to beat
As we sailed that day together!
It was cold when we started out,
As we noted with sad surprise;
And the tip of your nose was as blue, I suppose,
As the blue of your dear, dear eyes.
We sailed to Hampton Court,
And the sun had burnt us black;
Then we dodged a shower for the half of an hour,
And then we skated back;
Till the weather grew depressed
At the shifting state of its luck,
And the glass, set fair, gave it up in despair,
And much of the lightning struck.
We sat on the bank in the storm,
In the steady fall of the snow,
In the stinging hail and the howling gale,
And the scorching sun, you know;
We sat in it all--yes, all!
We cared for no kind of weather--
What made us so mad was the fact that we had
The whole of the kinds together.
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