" Jone laughed at that, and said I might as
well send them along green, for, after all, I wasn't the kind of a
person to keep things until they were seasoned, to see if I liked them.
"That's true," said I, "there's a great many things, such as husbands
and apples, that I like a good deal better fresh than dry. Is that all
the advice you've got to give?"
"For the present," said he; "but I dare say I shall have a good deal
more as we go along."
"All right," said I, "but be careful you don't give me any of it green.
Advice is like gooseberries, that's got to be soft and ripe, or else
well cooked and sugared, before they're fit to take into anybody's
stomach."
Jone was standing at the window of our sitting-room when I said this,
looking out into the street. As soon as we got to London we took
lodgings in a little street running out of the Strand, for we both want
to be in the middle of things as long as we are in this conglomerate
town, as Jone calls it. He says, and I think he is about right, that it
is made up of half a dozen large cities, ten or twelve towns, at least
fifty villages, more than a hundred little settlements, or hamlets, as
they call them here, and about a thousand country houses scattered
along around the edges; and over and above all these are the
inhabitants of a large province, which, there being no province to put
them into, are crammed into all the cracks and crevices so as to fill
up the town and pack it solid.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25