Poison Island

ve across dingles and past farm-gates under which the cocks and hens flattened themselves in their haste to give us room; to gaze back over the luggage and along the road, and assure myself that the r

ts and marine curiosities, its upper windows where parrots screamed in cages, its alleys and quay-doors giving peeps of the splendid harbour, thronge

ast respectable. The brass doorplate of No. 7-"Copenhagen Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen. Principal, the Rev. Philip Stimcoe,

as a grenadier, remarkable for a long upper lip decorated with two moles. She excused her condescension on the ground that the butler was

heeks disfigured by a purplish cutaneous disorder (which his wife, later on, attributed to his having slept b

g where a clock had lately stood (I conjectured that it must be at Greenwich, undergoing repairs); that Mrs. Stimcoe produced a decanter of sherry-a wine which Miss Plinlimmon abominated-and poured her out a glassful, with the remark that it had been twice round the world; that Miss Plinlimmon supposed

article of supererogation, in the shape of a razor-case on the dressing-table. Mrs. Stimcoe swept this into her pocket with a turn of the hand, and explained frankly that her husband, like most scholars, was absent-minded. Here she passed two fingers slow

he sheets having been duly inspected, we descended to the parlour again; for, happening to reach the doorwa

silence fell on the room, and I became aware that s

t upon the terrace and see the view from his new

y found myself face to face with three small boys, one staggering with the weight of a pail, the two others bearing a full washtub between them; a

o!" s

was a freckly, narrow-chested child, and needed washing. "You're the new b

wned. "Who

d Brotherhood of the Pam

staring down at him

n in the prospectus-and we're fetching water for Mother Stimcoe, because the turncock cut off

u three?" I asked, after

captain out in India; and these are Bob Pilkington and Scotty Maclean. You may call him

day-boy?"

nts it badly. Stimcoes and Rogerses are hated

at you were taking a walk wi

Bates

u like to

pulent man in an armchair, slumbering, with a yellow bandanna handkerchief over his head to protect it from t

rath. But we were in hiding behind the yard-wall

uite friendly with him in time. Down in the town they call him Mother Stimcoe's l

dness, "so natural in a scholar." I discovered long afterwards that Mr. Stimcoe, having retired to cash a note for her, had brought back a strong smell of brandy and eighteen-pence less than the stri

bore her away; and I walked back through the crowded streets with my spirits d

ain Coffin came up it from the Plume of Feathers public-house,