Page 75 - erewhon

and ate my dinner, which was excellent.
She returned in about an hour to take away; and there
came with her a man who had a great bunch of keys at his
waist, and whose manner convinced me that he was the jail-
or. I afterwards found that he was father to the beautiful
creature who had brought me my dinner. I am not a much
greater hypocrite than other people, and do what I would,
I could not look so very miserable. I had already recovered
from my dejection, and felt in a most genial humour both
with my jailor and his daughter. I thanked them for their at-
tention towards me; and, though they could not understand,
they looked at one another and laughed and chattered till
the old man said something or other which I suppose was a
joke; for the girl laughed merrily and ran away, leaving her
father to take away the dinner things. Then I had anoth-
er visitor, who was not so prepossessing, and who seemed
to have a great idea of himself and a small one of me. He
brought a book with him, and pens and paper—all very
English; and yet, neither paper, nor printing, nor binding,
nor pen, nor ink, were quite the same as ours.
He gave me to understand that he was to teach me the
language and that we were to begin at once. This delight-
ed me, both because I should be more comfortable when
I could understand and make myself understood, and be-
cause I supposed that the authorities would hardly teach me
the language if they intended any cruel usage towards me
afterwards. We began at once, and I learnt the names of ev-
erything in the room, and also the numerals and personal
pronouns. I found to my sorrow that the resemblance to

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