Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/83

  —a step which I soon regretted, as my camp became a nightmare of sound. A fortnight later, business becoming slack again, I served out the opera hats, and whipped up their ardor still further by exhibiting the spectacle frames."

Leyden paused and chuckled into his pipe until the sparks spouted from the big china bowl like a roman candle.

"Imagine, Doctor, such a spectacle! I had brought a lot of mosquito netting—pink, it was—and with that I had shown the savages how to make insect nects [sic]. Such a sight! Forty or fifty Indians and bush-niggers, some naked except for a fawn-colored opera hat and a pair of iron spectacles without the lenses; others swathed in flaming calico prints, sitting around my camp blowing into a harmonica or a jew's-harp, or sneaking through the jungle with shrimp-pink butter fly net! The very crocodiles used to crawl out upon the banks and laugh! And the natives all so proud and pleased! [ 67 ]