he answered. "He
says you enter his hospital and are insolent if he happens to be too
busy to attend to you at once. He says you refuse to let a native
orderly dress your wound!"

He had been entertained to one meal at the commandant's house on the
hill, and regaled by awful accounts of our ferocity. I did not succeed
in inserting as much as the thin end of a different view until he asked
me how a man's name could be professor Schillingschen and his wife's
Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon.

"I don't understand about titles," he said. "Shouldn't she take his
name, or else he hers, or something?"

I assured him that marriage had never as much as entered the head of
either of them.

"They're simply living together," I said. "He's a cynical brute. She's
a designing female!"

The missionary mind recoiled and refused to believe me. But after he
had thought the matter over and seen the probability, he swung over to
a sort of lame admission that a few more of my statements might perhaps
be true.

"I will take your letter and guarantee its delivery in British East,
provided I may read it and do not disapprove of its contents." he
volunteered.

"That's not unreasonable," I said, "but the letter is in code."

"I should have to see it decoded."

I told him to find Fred and Will. He came on them sitting smoking
under the great rock near the waterfront that had been inset with a
bronze medallion of Bismarck, and startled them almost into committing
an assault on him, by saying that he wanted our secret code at once.
They had been trying to get tobacco to Brown, and sweetmeats to
Kazimoto, had failed in both efforts and were short-tempered. He
explained after they had insulted him sufficiently, and they walked
down to the camp one on either hand, apologizing all the way. I
imagine they had criticized missions of all denominations pretty
thoroughly.

In the end he decided not to read the letter at all.

"I have reached the conclusion you three men are gentlemen," he said,
"and would not take advantage of me. I will take your letter to Ujiji,
and send it to the south end of Lake Tanganika, to be put in the
British mail bag for Mombasa by way of Durban. It will take a long
time to reach its destination--perhaps two months; but I will have it
registered, and it will undoubtedly get there."

That he kept his word and better we had ample proof later on, but I did
not bless him particularly fervidly at the time, for he w