_Confessions of an Exiled Bus_ After all, it was a hoary-haired scoundrel of a bus; a very reprobate of a bus; an envious, evil-thinking, ill-conditioned, flagrantly thieving, knavish blackguard of a bus.

Under no circumstances am I proud of the acquaintance.

But then, in extenuation, be it said that it was never anything but an acquaintance of Shadow-Land, conjured up, perhaps, by a material repast that had been palatable and indigestible.
Have you read Alphonse Daudet's delightful "Tartarin of Tarascon"?
Are you acquainted with the "baobab villa," and the elusive Montenegrin Prince, who had spent three years in Tarascon, but who never went out, and who decamped with Tartarin's well-filled wallet; and the jaundiced Costlecalde, and the embarrassingly affectionate camel, and the blind lion from the hide of which grew the great man's subsequent fame, and all the other whimsical creations of the novelist's pleasant fancy?
The book is one of my favourite books, one of the tomes that are taken to bed to pave the way to restful, happy slumber.

Perhaps that night it had been the last volume to be tossed aside before turning out the light, for as I slept, to use the words of the tinker of Bedford, I dreamed a dream.
There was a consciousness of being jolted about abominably in a ramshackle vehicle.

The surroundings were vague, as they always are in dreams.