as a long way off from our place," said Mr. Hoopdriver. "We had
a little ostrich farm, you know--Just a few hundred of 'em, out
Johannesburg way."

"On the Karroo--was it called?"

"That's the term. Some of it was freehold though. Luckily. We got along
very well in the old days.--But there's no ostriches on that farm now."
He had a diamond mine in his head, just at the moment, but he stopped
and left a little to the girl's imagination. Besides which it had
occurred to him with a kind of shock that he was lying.

"What became of the ostriches?"

"We sold 'em off, when we parted with the farm. Do you mind if I have
another cigarette? That was when I was quite a little chap, you know,
that we had this ostrich farm."

"Did you have Blacks and Boers about you?"

"Lots," said Mr. Hoopdriver, striking a match on his instep and
beginning to feel hot at the new responsibility he had brought upon
himself.

"How interesting! Do you know, I've never been out of England except to
Paris and Mentone and Switzerland."

"One gets tired of travelling (puff) after a bit, of course."

"You must tell me about your farm in South Africa. It always stimulates
my imagination to think of these places. I can fancy all the tall
ostriches being driven out by a black herd--to graze, I suppose. How do
ostriches feed?"

"Well," said Hoopdriver. "That's rather various. They have their
fancies, you know. There's fruit, of course, and that kind of thing. And
chicken food, and so forth. You have to use judgment."

"Did you ever see a lion?" "They weren't very common in our district,"
said Hoopdriver, quite modestly. "But I've seen them, of course. Once or
twice."

"Fancy seeing a lion! Weren't you frightened?"

Mr. Hoopdriver was now thoroughly sorry he had accepted that offer of
South Africa. He puffed his cigarette and regarded the Solent languidly
as he settled the fate on that lion in his mind. "I scarcely had time,"
he said. "It all happened in a minute."

"Go on," she said.

"I was going across the inner paddock where the fatted ostriches were."

"Did you EAT ostriches, then? I did not know--"

"Eat them!--often. Very nice they ARE too, properly stuffed. Well,
we--I, rather--was going across this paddock, and I saw something
standing up in the moonlight and looking at me." Mr. Hoopdriver was in a
hot perspiration now. His invention seemed to have gone limp. "Luckily
I had my father's gun with me. I was scared, though, I can tel