'And what relation is the elephant?' I asked.
Mrs Wilkins did not look at me, but with her blue eyes still gazed indifferently at the sea.
'He's no relation,' she answered. 'Only a friend.'
The boy brought lemonade for Mrs Wilkins, a whisky and soda for her husband, and a gin and tonic for me.
We shook dice and I signed the chit.
'It must come expensive if he always loses when he shakes,' Mrs Wilkins murmured to the coast-line.
'I guess Egbert would like a sip of your lemonade, my dear,' said Mr Wilkins.
Mrs Wilkins slightly turned her head and looked at the monkey sitting on her lap.
'Would you like a sip of mother's lemonade, Egbert?'
The monkey gave a little squeak and putting her arm round him she handed him a straw.
The monkey sucked up a little lemonade and having drunk enough sank back against Mrs Wilkins's ample bosom.
'Mrs Wilkins thinks the world of Egbert,' said her husband. 'You can't wonder at it, he's her youngest.'
Mrs Wilkins took another straw and thoughtfully drank her lemonade.
'Egbert's all right,' she remarked. 'There's nothin' wrong with Egbert.'
Just then the French official, who had been sitting down, got up and began walking up and down.
He had been accompanied on board by the French minister at Bangkok, one or two secretaries, and a prince of the royal family.
There had been a great deal of bowing and shaking of hands and as the ship slipped away from the quay much waving of hats and handkerchiefs.
He was evidently a person of consequence.
I had heard the captain address him as Monsieur le Gouverneur.
'That's the big noise on this boat,' said Mr Wilkins. 'He was Governor of one of the French colonies and now he's makin' a tour of the world.
He came to see my circus at Bangkok.
I guess I'll ask him what he'll have.
What shall I call him, my dear?'
Mrs Wilkins slowly turned her head and looked at the Frenchman, with the rosette of the Legion of Honour in his buttonhole, pacing up and down.
'Don't call him anythin',' she said. 'Show him a hoop and he'll jump right through it.'
I could not but laugh.
Monsieur le Gouverneur was a little man, well below the average height, and smally made, with a very ugly little face and thick, almost negroid features; and 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.
Next time he passed us Mr Wilkins called out:
'Monsoo.
Qu'est-ce que vous prenez?' I cannot reproduce the eccentricities of his accent. 'Une petite verre de porto.' He turned to me. 'Foreigners, they all drink porto. You're always safe with that.'
'Not the Dutch,' said Mrs Wilkins, with a look at the sea. 'They won't touch nothin' but Schnapps.'
The distinguished Frenchman stopped and looked at Mr Wilkins with some bewilderment. Whereupon Mr Wilkins tapped his breast and said:
"Moa, proprietarre Cirque.
Vous avez visite'.
Then, for a reason that escaped me, Mr Wilkins made his arms into a hoop and outlined the gestures that represented a poodle jumping through it.
Then he pointed at the Wa-Wa that Mrs Wilkins was still holding on her lap.
'La petit fils de mon femme,' he said.
Light broke upon the Governor and he burst into a peculiarly musical and infectious laugh.
Mr Wilkins began laughing too.
'Oui, oui,' he cried. 'Moa, circus proprietor.
Une petite verre de porto. Oui. Oui. Nest-ce-pas?'
'Mr Wilkins talks French like a Frenchman,' Mrs Wilkins informed the passing sea.
'Mais tres volontiers,' said the Governor, still smiling.
I drew him up a chair and he sat down with a bow to Mrs Wilkins.
'Tell poodle-face his name's Egbert,' she said, looking at the sea.
I called the boy and we ordered a round of drinks.
'You sign the chit, Elmer,' she said. 'It's not a bit of good Mr What's-his-name shakin' if he can't shake nothin' better than a pair of treys.'
'Vous comprenez le francais, madame?' asked the Governor politely.
'He wants to know if you speak French, my dear.'