nds, till I believe if you weren't such a good chap I'd rather
dislike you."

"`You do me proud,' Pentridge--unless, that is, you're pulling my leg.
Otherwise I hadn't the faintest idea of anything of the kind, and don't
see why it should be so now."

I believe I spoke with needless bitterness, but at the moment I could
not help thinking how much greater reason I had for disliking him.

"Well, but it is. Good old Matterson isn't effusive, as you know, and
I've never heard him boom any one before. But he's always booming you.
That time the Kafirs made that raid on you, he swears you stood by him
like a brick."

"Well, I could hardly turn tail and run away, could I?"

"Not only that, but he said he was astonished at the judgment you showed
on the occasion. And only this morning he was thanking his stars you
were so good at bossing up things, now that he was seedy, and rheumatic,
and Brian had to be away a lot."

Here was some practical cause for self-satisfaction, I thought. In view
of my utter ruin financially, it was gratifying to know that I was
deemed worth my salt in any one line of livelihood. But I answered--

"Well, if you've put your hand to the plough it's satisfactory to know
that you're driving a straight furrow."

"Rather. Brian, too, is always booming you, and as for those two kids,
why they don't cheek you a bit."

"Is that a sign of esteem?" I laughed, for the idea tickled me.
Further, I admit a littleness--in the shape of an anxiety to hear
whether Beryl had added her quota to the general testimonial, and if so
on what terms. But, by accident or design, he forebore to gratify me.

"I should say so," he rejoined. "Knowing their natural temperaments, it
means that they must hold you in profound respect--especially George."

"Poor little devil! He's had the cheek considerably taken out of him of
late," I said. "He used to be rather an outrage."

"So I should imagine. By the way, Holt, they were telling me about how
you got Iris out of the sea that time at East London. It was--"

But whatever "it was" I didn't want to hear.

"Stop there, Pentridge," I said. "That's a forbidden topic and one I'm
completely sick of. It was mere child's play to a fellow who is as
thoroughly at home in the water as I am, so don't talk about it."

"Oh, all right, old chap," he answered good-humouredly, and then he went
on to tell me something about himself. He had been some years in a slow
Dutch to