"Will you have some iced tea?" asked the Madonna; and then her side
of the table sank down gently and I said yes to her at an angle of
forty-five degrees.
"Speaking of sharks," said her husband, "up at Niihau there was a
man--" And at that moment the table lifted and heaved, and I gazed
upward at him at an angle of forty-five degrees.
So the luncheon went on, and I was glad that I did not have to bear
the affliction of watching Charmian walk. Suddenly, however, a
mysterious word of fear broke from the lips of the lotus-eaters.
"Ah, ah," thought I, "now the dream goes glimmering." I clutched
the chair desperately, resolved to drag back to the reality of the
Snark some tangible vestige of this lotus land. I felt the whole
dream lurching and pulling to be gone. Just then the mysterious
word of fear was repeated. It sounded like REPORTERS. I looked and
saw three of them coming across the lawn. Oh, blessed reporters!
Then the dream was indisputably real after all. I glanced out
across the shining water and saw the Snark at anchor, and I
remembered that I had sailed in her from San Francisco to Hawaii,
and that this was Pearl Harbour, and that even then I was
acknowledging introductions and saying, in reply to the first
question, "Yes, we had delightful weather all the way down."
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