“Wot you want fer a penny? A blinkin’ private suite, wiv bathroom attached?”

Everybody laughed at this, and it was felt that the man had been effectually and deservedly snubbed.

He, however, seemed to have the hide of a rhinoceros so far as jokes against himself were concerned, and spat again upon the floor with the utmost composure.

At this moment the bus began to go at an alarming rate and to take corners in a most dangerous manner. This was naturally alarming to all of us, but particularly to the Retsnips sitting opposite, who began to show the liveliest signs of nervousness. At last she could bear it no longer.

“Oh, dear—oh, dear!” she cried. “I’d give ten pounds to be out of this!”

“Don’t waste your money, lidy,” shouted the conductor, amidst all the roar and lurching of the vehicle. “You’ll be out soon enough!”

This, of course, was anything but consoling to the lady—charming specimen of Yenkcoc Ruomuh as it was. And, frankly, I was now terrified. I had yet to acquire a knowledge of that absolute disregard of danger, and complete inconsequence with respect to serious accidents, which characterizes the Moribundian Yenkcoc. A good enough example of it was given me in the next minute. For, in taking a corner at a most reckless speed, the bus ran clean into a hand-driven cart piled high with fruit and vegetables. The owner of the cart, from his appearance obviously a Yenkcoc like the driver and conductor, was thrown up into the air, and landed in the gutter. All the fruit, of course, was also projected violently into the air, and fell, like a shower of hail, upon the owner. By a comic freak of chance, a single apple fell into his outstretched hand, and now, scratching his head with one hand, and holding the apple in the other, he looked at the apple in a whimsical way which was most amusing to see. The bus had stopped, with a great screaming of brakes, and I waited eagerly to see what was going to happen next.

The owner of the cart remained in this foolish position for nearly a quarter of a minute, and then, with the utmost good humour, and looking from the apple to the conductor and back again, spoke.

“Thanks, chum,” he said. “Just the one I was wanting!”

Everybody laughed at this and the bus drove on. Instead of policemen arriving, instead of a crowd collecting, instead of bitter words and recriminations, collecting of evidence, witnesses, etc.—all was smoothed over by the delightful temperament of the victimized man!

Presently I observed that we were entering upon more spacious and imposing thoroughfares, and a little afterwards I noticed that there was a river on our right, very much like our own River Thames. This seemed to interest the Nacirema, who had been silent for some time.

“Say, Bo,” he said at last. “You don’t call this little dribble you’ve got here a river, do you? Why, back in my countree, we’ve got what you’d really call rivers.”

The conductor did not reply directly to this. Instead he leaned again out of the window, and shouted to the driver.

“Say, Bert,” he cried. “Your radiator’s leakin’, ain’t it?”

Even this piece of withering sarcasm did not have the desired effect of subduing the Nacirema, who seemed to have some extraordinary critical kink in his brain as regards the size of everything he saw. There happened to be an old lady sitting next to him, who was carrying a shopping basket on top of which was perched a large melon. I noticed him looking at this in a curious way for some time, and then he spoke again.

“Say, Bo,” he said. “Would you folks on this side call that there lil’ fruit a melon? Why, back in my countree, I guess we got lemons bigger’n that.” And he picked up the melon to scrutinize it.

“Arfamo, chum,” said the conductor. “Put down that grape!”

I may say here that in Moribundia the Nacirema is driven by some urge in the depths of his being to show his worst side and make his most outlandish statements whenever he is in the presence of a Yenkcoc, and that in the verbal encounter which ensues he invariably gets the worst of it. But then it is an axiom there that no one can ever get the better of a Yenkcoc in a verbal argument.

I would only weary my reader if I recounted all the exchanges which now passed between these two, or the countless other absurd things which were uttered or enacted during the remainder of the journey. I think, however, that the episodes I have given furnish very fair examples of the general type and level of the humour and behaviour one is certain to encounter in a Moribundian bus drive. I only wish I could have brought back with me some copies of the well-known Moribundian newspaper, the Gnineve Swen. This deservedly popular paper gives columns daily to the narration, by its readers, of these deliciously funny little episodes illustrative of the Yenkcoc Ruomuh —which it certainly could not do unless there was a virile demand for it, and which goes again to prove how dear this extraordinary figure, the Yenkcoc, is to the hearts of all true Moribundians—whether it be for the reasons I suggested above or not.

About ten minutes later we came into a thoroughfare very closely resembling our own Oxford Street, and something told me we were in the centre of the town, and that it would be advisable for me to get off the bus. I was trying to make up my mind, looking out of the window at each stop, when all at once something happened, or rather I saw something, which nearly shot me out of my seat.

The gloriously pretty girl who had so fascinated me on entering, had moved over to a seat opposite to me, and had been looking out of the window so that I could only see her profile. She now turned and looked at me, and I saw her full face for the first time.

I do not know how to express the macabre horror of what I saw. It was not one face, but two faces in one! A straight, firm dividing line came down from the middle of the forehead, through the nose, to the chin, and it seemed that each half of her face belonged to a different person! While in the left side of the face I recognized the lovely creature I had before seen, the right side belonged to an old, vindictive, hideous hag!—a hag, moreover, whose skin was disfigured with such atrocious blotches, pimples, blackheads, wrinkles, wens, creases and spots that I still feel almost sick in writing about them.