Love

1.) I left Bangkok on a shabby little ship. I had gone on board early in the morning and soon discovered that I was thrown amid the oddest collection of persons I had ever encountered. There were two French traders and a Belgian colonel, an Italian tenor, the American proprietor of a circus with his wife, and a retired French official with his.
The French official had been accompanied on board by the French minister at Bangkok, one or two secretaries and a prince of a royal family. He was evidently a person of consequence. I had heard the captain address him as Monsieur le Gouverneur.
2.) Monsieur le Gouverneur was a little man, well below the average height, and smally made, with a very ugly little face; he had a bushy grey head, bushy grey eyebrows, and a bushy grey moustache. He did look a little like a poodle and he had the poodle's soft, intelligent and shining eyes.
The Governor's wife was a large woman, tall and of a robust build. She towered over her diminutive husband like ...