id Edith Sewin. "By
the way isn't it extraordinary that Arlo won't take to Ivondwe? Such a
good boy as he is, too."

"Perhaps he's a thundering great scoundrel at bottom," said Falkner,
"and Arlo's instinct gets below the surface."

"Who's a thundering great scoundrel at bottom, Falkner?" said Mrs
Sewin's voice in the doorway.

"Eh. Oh come now, aunt. You mustn't use these slang terms you know.
Look, you're shocking Glanton like anything."

"You'll shock him more for an abominably rude boy who pokes fun at his
elders," laughed the old lady. "But come in now and have tea. What a
lovely afternoon it is--but a trifle drowsy."

"Meaning that somebody's been asleep," rejoined Falkner mischievously,
climbing out of his hammock. "Oh well. So it is. Let's go for a
stroll presently or we shall all be going to sleep. Might take the
fishing lines and see what we can get out of the waterhole."

"Fishing lines? And it's Sunday," said Mrs Sewin, who was old
fashioned.

"Oh I forgot. Never mind the lines. We can souse Arlo in and teach him
to dive."

"We can do nothing of the kind," said Arlo's owner, decisively. "He
came within an ace of splitting his poor dear head the last time you
threw him in, and from such a height too. What do you think of that,
Mr Glanton?" turning to me. And then she gave me the story of how
Falkner had taken advantage of the too obedient and confiding Arlo--and
of course I sympathised.

When we got fairly under way for our stroll--I had some difficulty by
the bye in out-manoeuvring the Major's efforts to keep me pottering
about listening to his schemes as to his hobby--the garden to wit--the
heat of the day had given place to the most perfect part of the same,
the glow of the waning afternoon, when the sun is but one hour or so off
his disappearance. We sauntered along a winding bush path, perforce in
single file, and soon, when this widened, I don't know how, but I found
myself walking beside Miss Sewin.

I believe I was rather silent. The fact is, reason myself out of it as
I would, I was not in the least anxious to leave home, and now that it
had come to the point would have welcomed any excuse to have thrown up
the trip. Yet I was not a millionaire--very far from it--consequently
money had to be made somehow, and here was a chance of making quite a
tidy bit--making it too, in a way that to myself was easy, and
absolutely congenial. Yet I would have shirked it. Why?

"W