to Miss Adelaide Boodle

Taiti, October 10th, 1888.

DEAR GIVER,—I am at a loss to conceive your object in giving me to a person so locomotory as my proprietor.  The number of thousand miles that I have travelled, the strange bed-fellows with which I have been made acquainted, I lack the requisite literary talent to make clear to your imagination.  I speak of bed-fellows; pocket-fellows would be a more exact expression, for the place of my abode is in my master’s righthand trouser-pocket; and there, as he waded on the resounding beaches of Nukahiva, or in the shallow tepid water on the reef of Fakarava, I have been overwhelmed by and buried among all manner of abominable South Sea shells, beautiful enough in their way, I make no doubt, but singular company for any self-respecting paper-cutter.  He, my master—or as I more justly call him, my bearer; for although I occasionally serve him, does not he serve me daily and all day long, carrying me like an African potentate on my subject’s legs?—he is delighted with these isles, and this climate, and these savages, and a variety of other things.  He now blows a flageolet with singular effects: sometimes the poor thing appears stifled with shame, sometimes it screams with agony; he pursues his career with truculent insensibility.  Health appears to reign in the party.  I was very nearly sunk in a squall.  I am sorry I ever left England, for here there are no books to be had, and without books there is no stable situation for, dear Giver, your affectionate

Wooden Paper-Cutter.

A neighbouring pair of scissors snips a kiss in your direction.