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Extract from letter No. 4:
Cap. Fitch said "There's the king. That's him in the buggy. I know him
as far as I can see him."
I had never seen a king, and I naturally took out a note-book and put
him down: "Tall, slender, dark, full-bearded; green frock-coat, with
lapels and collar bordered with gold band an inch wide; plug hat, broad
gold band around it; royal costume looks too much like livery; this man
is not as fleshy as I thought he was."
I had just got these notes when Cap. Fitch discovered that he'd got hold
of the wrong king, or rather, that he'd got hold of the king's driver,
or a carriage driver of one of the nobility. The king wasn't present at
all. It was a great disappointment to me. I heard afterwards that the
comfortable, easy-going king, Kamehameha V., had been seen sitting on
a barrel on the wharf, the day before, fishing. But there was no
consolation in that. That did not restore me my lost king.
This has something of the flavor of the man we were to know later;
the quaint, gentle resignation to disappointment which is one of the
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