ce tournoiement," he confessed, then spoilt—or saved—the situation by stipulating, "Pourvu que je sois en sureté." Paul knew, in short, that he was imbibing an intoxicating draught, and was fully aware of the effect of intoxicants.
On this occasion the effect endured about five days. At the end of that period he saw the coast of Spain, and discovered that Spain, which he had not visited, meant more to him, literally and figuratively, than Bombay, with which he was familiar. He was standing on the main deck, supervising the lashing down of a row of stalls containing polo ponies. The boxes had become insecure during a siege of bad weather in the Bay of Biscay.
His eyes rested on the dim shore-line, and his thoughts, mounted on a leisurely Rosinante, ambled inland. Castles in Spain—Castilian women of an exotic blondness, like blood-oranges—Carmen—Lazarillo—Figaro—amber grapes, bull-rings, acrid cafés where livid, moustached women and tight-trousered men danced to schottisches in which rhythms swished like flaming petticoats under the enveloping skirt of the melody. He pictured John Tanner in the Alhambra, enjoyed Granada with a Shavian relish, then snorted at the incongruity. He was a romanticist despite his Shavianism, and he began to suspect Shaw of the same wretched defection. One must be anti-romantic to be Shavian, and anti-Shavian to be Shawlike!
He turned from the rail with a sigh. As usual the daydream had ended in an intellectual paradox.
And that poor, caged pony! A Lascar deckhand had hit it over the nose to punish it for trying to kick the back out of its box. Why shouldn't it kick the back out of its box!
As a deputy of Providence it was Paul's duty to reprimand the Lascar in sharp pidgin-English for abusing a
