“No, no. There’s no row on—as yet. That’ll come, sooner or later, all in good time. Only business.”
“Oh! What kind?”
Verna was so completely in her father’s confidence in every department of the same that there was no inquisitiveness underlying the query. There was a joke in the background of this, however, which he was not going to let her into. It would keep.
“What kind?” he repeated. “Oh, general. I say, though, Meyrick and Francis are nice chaps, aren’t they? but, good Lord! their faces would have been a study if they could have seen through that heap of waggon sail in the yard that was staring them in the eye through the window all the time they were scoffing the other bit of the owner of that head, which was browsing away in Lumisana this time yesterday. Eh? Beef! Roast beef of Old England! That was killingly funny. What?”
“Yes, it was,” rejoined Verna, who was gazing after the receding figures of the police, growing smaller and smaller on the plain below. “Still, the mistake was excusable. There’s not much difference between either. When are we going to Ezulwini, dear?”
“H’m. In a day or two.”
Note 1. A snake of the mamba species, which grows to a considerable size, very scarce, and with a proportionately bad reputation.