“That’s all too thickly laid on,” he said. “Gratitude, ‘lively sense of favours to come,’ i.e. prospective ’bacco. H’m! much too thick!”
“What a dreadful person you are!” expostulated Ethel. “Why shouldn’t they mean what they say? I declare that speech of Xuvani’s was a perfect flower of savage poetry, and you don’t know what a good fellow he is. I think it’s quite horrid of you to throw cold water on him.”
“So it would be if I had. The noble savage don’t affect that fluid much as a rule in any state of temperature.”
Did the Kafir mean what he said? We shall see.
Note 1. Frontier term for the growling noise which is neither roar nor bellow, made by enraged cattle.