“Oh, he’ll be here in a minute,” said Hicks. “I left him yarning with Xuvani. He says the old chap’s teaching him Kafir, and I’ll be hanged if ever I knew a fellow pick it up so quickly. He didn’t know a word when he came here, but Xavani says he must have really, and was keeping it dark. He let drop two or three idiomatic expressions which showed that he must have known something about the language or the structure of it.”
At that moment the door opened, admitting the object of their discussion.
“Late, I’m afraid,” he said, sliding into his place. “That long-legged humbug, Ntyesa, swore he had left his jacket in the shearing-house, and I had to go and unlock it again for him. Awfully sorry.”
“Mr Claverton can’t tear himself away, even at half-past eight,” said Ethel, maliciously. “He will soon be quite glued to the wool bales.”
He glanced up with an amused look. “While there is light, there is work—in shearing time,” he replied.
“Bother shearing time!” rejoined she, pettishly. “I wish you’d be quick and finish it. We can’t get about at all, because there’s no one to take us. Laura and I have wanted to go over to Thirlestane, and to Jim’s, and a host of places, but we can’t. We are just as much shut up in here as you are in there. Aren’t we, Laura?”
“Ha—ha—ha,” laughed her uncle, with whom she was a prime favourite, and who spoilt her outrageously. “You’d better come and give us a hand, Ethel. You and Laura. We shall get it over ever so much sooner then. You shall have six shillings a hundred. Eh?”
“They oughtn’t to have more than five, because they don’t bring their own shears,” cut in Hicks.
“They’ve got nail-scissors, though,” murmured Claverton.
“Ah, I could see you were going to say something horrid,” cried Ethel.