Page:Aurora Australis.djvu/124

AURORA AUSTRALIS. Emperor Penguin. I was in case to justle a constable.

Our enemy, however was in an aggressive mood. We hesitated at the idea of turning out our pockets to this truculent fowl, so he without more ado, passed his stick over my clothes. It struck my ﬂask with a full sound. At once his worst suspicions were re-doubled.

“Come away, noo, oot wi’ it,” he cried. “Yon’s an egg, ye young rascal, if I’m no vera much mistaken."

“Indeed it is not,” I replied, with new found confidence. “That’s my pocket ﬂask, by the way have a dram, will you?” For I thought this was the psychical moment for the introduction of this delicate, but at the same time not disagreeable subject.

“Na, na, laddie,” he said“, “no sae fast as a’ that. I’ll jeest take your names and addresses and what’s your business here.”

Now there are many ways of revealing one’s identity and asserting one’s position on an occasion like this, but there is none so dignified, not to say majestic, as the display of a clean visiting-card. A lightning thought struck me, and plunging my hand into my breast pocket, I produced the required piece of pasteboard, with an austere ﬂourish and a general air of