y Wire_ files are
bomb-proof, possibly it would be better to take the family with you--and
stop until times improve."

"Not bad, not half bad, Colonel! But to tell the truth, I wouldn't miss
what we used to call the shindy, and these boys of yours term the 'scrap'
for a pile of Kruger sovereigns. And--I can shoot better than most men, if
I am in the sere and yellow sixties." The Mayor was slightly ruffled; the
diplomatic touch smoothed him down.

"My money is on you, Mr. Mayor, when it comes to stopping a Boer with a
rifle-bullet at four hundred yards. By the way, I have a little confidence
to repose in you. When you meet--as I am convinced you will meet--Dr.
Saxham at the Hospital or elsewhere, metaphorically clothed and in his
right mind, and in the active discharge of duties which no man, judging by
your own testimony, is better fitted to perform, let him down gently."

The Mayor, conscious of civic dignity and magisterial warnings from the
Bench ignored, swelled obviously.

"My dear sir, you can't let the Dop Doctor down anyhow. He is--just about
as low as a man can get--short of being underground."

"Lend him a hand up--in the first instance--by forgetting that confounded
nickname which I was clumsy enough to blurt out just now. Be oblivious of
what he is, because of what he has been in the past, and will be in the
future. For there is tremendous stuff in the fellow even now--or I am a
bad judge of men."

"Colonel, you're a thundering bad judge of drunkards, from the Bench's
point of view, but you'd be a damned good special pleader for a client in
need of all the excuses that could be trumped up for him."

"We all have something we'd like to have an excuse for, Mr. Mayor." The
keen hawk-eyes held a twinkle in reserve. "There was a man I knew, a
mighty hunter before the Lord--and before the Game Laws." The thin brown
fingers of the muscular hard-palmed hand played with the stem of a
wineglass as the sentences came out, crisp and pointed. "Well, this is the
story of a mistake, and an old _shikari_ of your experience can find even
more excuses for it than I can ... but perhaps I bore you?"

"On the contrary--on the contrary, sir."

The fish had taken the bait, remained to play the quivering captive until
his last swirling struggle brought him within reach of the skilful dip and
lift of the angler's net.

"It was about four years ago, in the Portuguese coast-lands, South of the
Zambesi, where elephants are t