nt, but wholly English in his sympathies. For years I
had been his agent in London, and when in '72 he came over to England
for a three months' holiday, he turned to me for the introductions which
would enable him to see something of town and country life. Armed with
seven letters he left my offices, and for many weeks scrappy notes from
different parts of the country let me know that he had found favour in
the eyes of my friends. Then came word of his engagement to Emily
Lawson, of a cadet branch of the Hereford Lawsons, and at the very tail
of the first flying rumour the news of his absolute marriage, for the
wooing of a wanderer must be short, and the days were already crowding
on towards the date when he must be upon his homeward journey. They were
to return together to Colombo in one of the firm's own thousand-ton
barque-rigged sailing ships, and this was to be their princely
honeymoon, at once a necessity and a delight.

Those were the royal days of coffee-planting in Ceylon, before a single
season and a rotting fungus drove a whole community through years of
despair to one of the greatest commercial victories which pluck and
ingenuity ever won. Not often is it that men have the heart when their
one great industry is withered to rear up in a few years another as rich
to take its place, and the tea-fields of Ceylon are as true a monument
to courage as is the lion at Waterloo. But in '72 there was no cloud yet
above the skyline, and the hopes of the planters were as high and as
bright as the hill-sides on which they reared their crops. Vansittart
came down to London with his young and beautiful wife. I was introduced,
dined with them, and it was finally arranged that I, since business
called me also to Ceylon, should be a fellow-passenger with them on the
_Eastern Star_, which was timed to sail on the following Monday.

It was on the Sunday evening that I saw him again. He was shown up into
my rooms about nine o'clock at night, with the air of a man who is
bothered and out of sorts. His hand, as I shook it, was hot and dry.

"I wish, Atkinson," said he, "that you could give me a little lime-juice
and water. I have a beastly thirst upon me, and the more I take the more
I seem to want."

I rang and ordered a caraffe and glasses. "You are flushed," said I.
"You don't look the thing."

"No, I'm clean off colour. Got a touch of rheumatism in my back, and
don't seem to taste my food. It is this vile London that is cho