“The pay is not profuse,” soliloquised the fortunate recipient of this missive, “especially to make a fresh start upon at my time of life. Well, the old saw about beggars and choosers holds good, but—where the very deuce is Doppersdorp?”
“Hallo, Musgrave! Had ten thousand a year left you?” cried a jolly, hail-the-maintop sort of voice behind him.
Its owner was a powerfully built man of middle age, whose handsome face, bronzed and bearded, was lit up by a pair of keen brown eyes with a merry twinkle in them which was more than half satirical. He was clad in a dark blue, gold-laced, quasi-naval uniform.
“You know something about this country, eh, skipper?” said the other, turning away from the taffrail, over which he had been leaning.
“I ought to by now, considering the number of years I’ve had to do with it,” was the confident reply.
“So? Well, I’ll bet you a bottle of Heidsieck you don’t answer the first question I put to you concerning it. But whether I win or lose it’ll be our parting drink together.”
“Our parting drink? Man alive, what sort of humbug are you talking? Aren’t we going on as far as Natal together, and haven’t we only just begun our unlading? That means two days more here, if not three. Then we are sure to be kept a couple of days at East London. So this day week we can talk about our parting drink, not to-day.”
“Never mind that for a moment. Is that bet on?”
“All right—yes. Now then, what’s the question?”
“Where is Doppersdorp?”