Travers, noticing his guest's attention fixed upon a valuable old sideboard, said:
"I see you are looking at the Chippendale! This place is no mushroom, and been established over eighty years. I took it from the executors of a very old planter, who started it, and collected no end of good furniture, plate and glass, from auctions and sales—the break-up of families, who were pioneers in these hills."
Presently the conversation turned to the subject nearest to the wayfarer's heart, "shikar." On such a topic, the two were in the most profound, and, so to speak, deadly sympathy. Mayne listened enthralled—to an excellent supper—to vivid descriptions of beats and bags, "near shaves," and glorious triumphs. Afterwards the sportsmen smoked in the verandah, and exchanged views on a surprising variety of subjects, from the stars in their courses, to the preserving of skins, and the imperative use of arsenical soap.
Later, as Travers escorted his guest to the spare room, he said:
"I expect we shall be able to show you some fairly good sport."
"I'm sure of it," responded Mayne, "but by no means so sure, that I ought to trespass on your good nature. For all you know, I may be an impudent impostor!"
"Oh, I'll risk that," replied Travers with a hearty laugh, then as he turned to withdraw, "Make yourself at home—and sleep well."
Next morning, the dâk-wallah's brown leather bag carried the English mail to Fairplains, and among papers and advertisements were two or three letters for Travers, including one from Mr. Fletcher. He wrote from a nursing home in London, and gave a belated notice of the prospective arrival of the nephew of his old friend, Richard Mayne:
"I don't know the young man personally," he said, "but if he is like his uncle, he will be all right. Mayne is in the Porcupines on the West Coast, is mad keen to see some sport, and could not be in better hands than yours. His father is dead, and his mother has married again. My friend, a bachelor, is a man of large property, and I fancy your visitor will be his heir. He has a little money of his own—and they say, brains. Let him have my guns, and the brown pony, do your best for him, and don't let him flirt with Nancy. I'm not much better, and the doctors talk of having another 'go' at me. How did our ancestors live without these operations? They died, I suppose. Well, we must all go—sometime——"