, while as to me character,
I'm very sure I'm the worse there."

"Vat's de matter mit him?"

"What's not the matter with him. If he's agrayable he's not natural,
and if he's natural he's not agrayable. I don't pretind to be a saint.
I've seen some fun in me day, and hope to see some more before I die;
but there are some things that I wouldn't do. If I live be cards it's
all fair and aboveboard. I never play anything but games o' skill, and
I reckon on me skill bringing me out on the right side, taking one night
with another through the year. Again, at billiards I may not always
play me best, but that's gineralship. You don't want a whole room to
know to a point what your game is. I'm the last man to preach, but,
bedad, I don't like that chap, and I don't like that handsome, brazen
face of his. I've spint the greater part of my life reading folks'
faces, and never very far out either."

Von Baumser made no remark, and the two continued to smoke silently,
with an occasional pull at their flagons.

"Besides, it's no good to me socially," the major continued.
"The fellow can't keep quiet, else he might pass in a crowd; but that
demned commercial instinct will show itself. If he went to heaven he'd
start an agency for harps and crowns. Did I tell you what the
Honourable Jack Gibbs said to me at the club? Ged, he let me have it
straight! 'Buck,' he said, 'I don't mind you. You're one o' the right
sort when all's said and done, but if you ever inthroduce such a chap as
that to me again, I'll cut you as well as him for the future.' I'd
inthroduced them to put the young spalpeen in a good humour, for, being
short, as ye know, I thought it might be necessary to negotiate a loan
from him."

"Vat did you say his name vas?" Von Baumser asked suddenly.

"Girdlestone."

"Is his father a Kauffmann?"

"What the divil is a Kauffmann?" the major asked impatiently. "Is it a
merchant you mean?"

"Ah, a merchant. One who trades with the Afrikaner?"

"The same."

Von Baumser took a bulky pocket-book from his inside pocket, and scanned
a long list of names therein. "Ah, it is the same," he cried at last
triumphantly, shutting up the book and replacing it. "Girdlestone &
Co., African kauf--dat is, merchants--Fenchurch Street, City."

"Those are they."

"And you say dey are rich?"

"Yes."

"Very rich?"

"Yes."

The major began to think that his companion had been imbibing in his
absence, for there was a