hear?"

"May I be permitted to ask why?" I said, sarcastically.

"No, you mayn't and be damned to you. But I'll tell you. Because I say
so. That's why. Because _I_ say so. You've heard of me."

"Don't know that I have. Who might you be when you're at home?"

"I'm Dolf Norbury. That's who I might be. Dolf Norbury, d'you hear?
I've got the trade up here, and I'm damned if I'm going to have any
dirty winkler from Natal coming up here to make holes in it. Now--d'you
hear?"

"Winkler" meaning a small shopkeeper, was meant to be offensive.

"Oh, so you're Dolf Norbury, are you?" I said, pretending to be
impressed.

"That's right. I'm Dolf Norbury, and no man ever got the blind side of
me and kept it. Now--clear."

"Ah!" I said. "I'm Godfrey Glanton, and no man ever got the blind side
of me and kept it. Now--clear."

I thought he would there and then have tumbled down in a fit. It
happened that I had heard a good deal about this Dolf Norbury, but had
only seen him once, at Krantz Kop, and that some years before; on which
occasion, however, he had been far too drunk to remember me now. He was
a big, roaring, buffalo bull of a fellow of about fifty, who would be
sure to gain ascendency among savages if he laid himself out to do so.
He had Mawendhlela completely under his thumb, and that for a further
reason than those which have just appeared, which was as well for
himself, for the more respectable chiefs of Zululand would have nothing
to do with him by this time. He would have been turned out of the
country, or would have died suddenly, before this but that he had his
uses; for he was a most daring and successful gunrunner among other
accomplishments. With all his bounce he was not wanting in pluck, and
could hold his own anywhere, and always had held it as some had found to
their cost--he would add, darkly boastful. His record was uncertain,
but he had an intimate acquaintance with the Transkein border and
Pondoland: and talked the native dialects faultlessly; in short he was
just the type that would drift into the position of "chief's white man,"
with all the advantages of self-enrichment which it affords--and these
are not small if the thing is properly worked. The only thing certain
about him was that for some time past he dared not show his face upon
any square yard of ground under British jurisdiction--on pain of death
in mid air, it was not obscurely hinted. In aspect he was heavy and
po