es and
works and travels, prisoner to this creed.

Elsa never strolled among them. She was dainty. This world and these
people were new and strange to her, and as yet she could not quite
dominate the fear that some one of these brown-skinned beings might be
coming down with the plague. So she stood framed in the doorway, a
picture rare indeed to the dark eyes that sped their frank glances in
her direction.

"No, Sahib, no; it is three hundred."

"James, I tell you it's rupees three hundred and twelve, annas eight."

Upon a bench, backed against the partition, almost within touch of her
hand, sat the man Warrington and his servant, arguing over their
accounts. The former's battered helmet was tilted at a comfortable
angle and an ancient cutty hung pendent from his teeth, an idle wisp of
smoke hovering over the blackened bowl.

Elsa quietly returned to her chair in the bow and tried to become
interested in a novel. By and by the book slipped from her fingers to
her lap, and her eyes closed. But not for long. She heard the rasp of
a camp-stool being drawn toward her.

"You weren't dozing, were you?" asked the purser apologetically.

"Not in the least. I have only just got up."

"Shouldn't have disturbed you; but your orders were that whenever I had
an interesting story about the life over here, I was to tell it to you
instantly. And this one is just rippin'!"

"Begin," said Elsa. She sat up and threw back her cloak, for it was
now growing warm. "It's about Parrot & Co., I'm sure."

"You've hit it off the first thing," admiringly.

"Well, go on."

"It's better than any story you'll read in a month of Sundays. Our man
has just turned the trick, as you Americans say, for twenty thousand
pounds."

"Why, that is a fortune!"

"For some of us, yes. You see, whatever he was in the past, it was
something worth while, I fancy. Engineering, possibly. Knew his
geology and all that. Been wondering for months what kept him hanging
around this bally old river. Seems he found oil, borrowed the savings
of his servant and bought up some land on the line of the new
discoveries. Then he waited for the syndicate to buy. They ignored
him. They didn't send any one even to investigate his claim. Stupid,
rather. After a while, he went to them, at Prome, at Rangoon. They
thought they knew his kind. Ten thousand rupees was all he asked.
They laughed. The next time he wanted a hundred thousand. They
laughe