long. But I want particularly to
secure you because--well, to be perfectly plain and blunt, because I
have taken a great fancy to you, and because I recognise in you exactly
the qualities that would make of you not only an invaluable assistant
but also a perfectly ideal partner, friend, and companion. Therefore,
in your capacity as medical attendant to the expedition I propose to
offer you a regular fixed salary of, let us say, two guineas a day, or,
taking one month with another, sixty-five pounds a month--the first six
months to be paid in advance--and, in your capacity of partner, all the
ivory, skins, and other matters which we may accumulate during the
progress of the expedition, except what I may desire to appropriate as
trophies wherewith to adorn the ancestral halls."

Dick laughed. "Thank you very much," he said, "but I couldn't possibly
accede to your terms; they are altogether too glaringly unfair. The
salaried part I don't at all object to, because of course if you desire
to include a medical man in your retinue you must pay him a fair salary,
and two guineas a day is not too much, in my opinion. But when you come
to talk about my share of the spoils, in my capacity of your partner, it
becomes a different matter altogether, since I cannot contribute a
farthing to the expenses of the expedition, therefore I cannot by any
process of reasoning be entitled to any share of its possible profits.
No; if you care to engage me as doctor, at the salary that you have
named, I will accept the post with pleasure and my most hearty thanks,
because the pay will suffice to keep the dear old Mater going; and when
we return to civilisation--if we ever do--I shall be able to set about
the task in earnest of `making my fortune.'"

"But, look here my dear fellow," remonstrated Grosvenor, "it is just
nonsense in you--if you will excuse my saying so--to refuse the second
part of my proposal, for this reason. I am not undertaking this
expedition as a speculation, or with any idea of making it pay. I have
already a much larger income than I know what to do with, and for that
and other reasons money does not come into the question at all. Like
other fellows who go hunting, I shall naturally desire to have a few
trophies to exhibit as tokens of my prowess; but, beyond those, I shall
have no use at all for ivory, skins, horns, and such other matters as we
may acquire; therefore you may as well have them as anyone else,
especia