said Emson
rather sadly. "I wish him better luck than ours, young un."

"Oh, I say, Joe, don't talk in that doleful way," cried Dyke excitedly.
"This is so jolly. It's like being Robinson Crusoe and seeing a sail.
Here, wait while I fetch the glass."

Dyke returned the next minute with his hands trembling so that he could
hardly focus and steady the "optic tube." Then he shouted in his
excitement, and handed the telescope to his brother.

"Why, it's that fat old Dutchman, Morgenstern! Who'd have thought of
seeing him?"

Sure enough it was the old trader, seated like the Great Mogul in the
old woodcuts. He was upon the wagon-box, holding up an enormously long
whip, and two black servants were with him--one at the head of the long
team of twelve oxen, the other about the middle of the double line of
six, as the heavy wagon came slowly along, the bullocks seeming to
crawl.

"I am glad," cried Dyke. "I say, Joe, see his great whip? He looked in
the glass as if he were fishing."

"Tant make fine big cake--kettle boil--biltong tea?" asked the Kaffir
woman hospitably.

"Yes," said Emson quietly. "But," he continued, as Tanta Sal ran off to
the back of the house, "it may not be Morgenstern, young un. Fat
Germans look very much alike."

"Oh, but I feel sure this is the old chap.--I say, what's the German for
fat old man?"

"I don't know. My German has grown rusty out here. Dicker alte Mann,
perhaps. Why?"

"Because I mean to call him that. He always called me booby."

"No, bube:--boy," said Emson, smiling.

They stood watching the wagon creeping nearer and nearer for a minute or
two, Dyke longing to run to meet the visitors; but he suddenly recalled
the orderly look at Morgenstern's, and rushed back into the house to try
to make their rough board a little more presentable; and he was still in
the midst of this task, when, with a good deal of shouting from the
Kaffir servants, and sundry loud cracks of the great whip, the wagon,
creaking and groaning, stopped at the fence in front of the house, and
the old German shouted:

"Ach! mein goot vrient Emzon, how you vas to-day? Vere is der bube?"

"Dicker alte Mann!" said Dyke between his teeth, and hurriedly brushing
away some crumbs, and throwing a skin over the chest in which various
odds and ends were kept, he listened to the big bluff voice outside as
Morgenstern descended.

"It is goot to shack hant mit an Englander. Bood you look tin, mein
vri