'Ah! here he comes. Archie, spread the awning out of doors, lay the table,
bring a jug of cold _mate_ and the cigars.'

Truly Archie was a curious Highlander. He was quite as tall as our Archie,
and though the hermit assured us he was only a baby when he bought him in
Central Africa for about sevenpence halfpenny in Indian coin, he had now
the wrinkled face of an old man of ninety--wrinkled, wizened, and weird.
But his eye was singularly bright and young-looking. In his hand he
carried a long pole from which he had bitten all the bark, and his only
dress was a little petticoat of skunk skin, which the hermit called his
kilt. He was, in fact, an African orang-outang.

'Come and shake hands with the good gentlemen, Archie.'

Archie knitted his brows, and looked at us without moving. The hermit
laughingly handed him a pair of big horn-rimmed spectacles. These he put
on with all the gravity of some ancient professor of Sanscrit, then looked
us all over once again.

We could stand this no longer, and so burst into a chorus of laughing.

'Don't laugh longer than you can help, boys. See, Archie is angry.'

Archie was. He showed a mouth full of fearful-looking fangs, and fingered
his club in a way that was not pleasant.

'Archie, you may have some peaches presently.'

[Illustration: Interview with the Orang-outang]

Archie grew pleasant again in a moment, and advanced and shook hands with
us all round, looking all the time, however, as if he had some silent
sorrow somewhere. I confess he wrung our hands pretty hard. Neither my
brother nor I made any remark, but when it came to Archie's turn--

'Honolulu!' he shouted, shaking his fingers, and blowing on them. 'I
believe he has made the blood come!'

'I suppose,' said Dugald, laughing, 'he knows you are a namesake.'

Off went the great baboon, and to our intense astonishment spread the
awning, placed table and camp-stools under it, and fetched the cold _mate_
with all the gravity and decorum of the chief steward on a first-class
liner.

I looked at my brothers, and they looked at me.

'You seem all surprised,' the hermit said, 'but remember that in olden
times it was no rare thing to see baboons of this same species waiting at
the tables of your English nobility. Well, I am not only a noble, but a
king; why should not I also have an anthropoid as a butler and valet?'

'I confess,' I said, 'I for one am very much surprised at all I have seen
and all that has hap