"Hallo, Meredith, I heard rumors that there was a white man up in this part of the bush, but I never guessed it was you. I did think of sending on a runner to see, but somehow I didn't."
"No, you wouldn't," said the older man. "I never knew you make up your mind to anything unless it was decided for you. Now, look here, Slade, we're in lonely country here, and if I shoot you, you'll never be missed; and, by gad, shoot you I will unless you mend your memory."
"Poof! what does it matter? We're the only white men within two hundred miles, and the boys are out of earshot."
"A black boy can hear a lot farther than you think, and for that matter I've known trees in West Africa to have ears that understand English—at least that has been the only explanation one could find of the way things have leaked out. But we'll leave all that alone. I've given you to understand by what name I wish to be addressed."
"Well, you needn't be so short about it. I've always called you Smith down in the Coast factories. Of course I can't forget that I once knew you when you were——"
"Will you hold your slobbering tongue? If you can't, say so, and I'll stop it once and for always. I've told you my wish; to you or anyone else I'm Smith, or Swizzle-Stick Smith, which you like. I've no connection with anything that went before, and 'pon my soul, as you're the only man now alive that knows it, I believe I'd be a lot safer if you were out of the way."
Slade turned his back petulantly. "Oh, do stop this wrangle. I'll call you Swizzle-Stick Smith to the end of the chapter, and forget that you were ever anything other than a drunken old palm-oil ruffian, if it pleases you. Come to my hut and chop. I shot some parrots this morning. They'll taste a bit like high rook, but they are better than tinned stuff anyway. They came over finely; real raketers. It was quite like the old days at home. This gun, by the way, is about my last link with ancestral splendor. Look there, a Holland. They wanted me to have ejectors, I remember, but I wouldn't."
Mr. Smith screwed his eyeglass into his other eye and straightened the new black silk ribbon by which it hung. "No," he said grimly, "that was very wise of you, especially as ejectors weren't invented when that gun was built. I wonder what sort of a tale you told Image before he trusted you with it?"
"What are you driving at? What's Cappie Image to do with it?"
"That's my gun. I had it—well, as you've started the forbidden subject already—I had it before the fall. Image saw it at Malla-Nulla one day when I was full up and walked off with it, and I never managed to get it back from him. He always said the beach was too bad to risk letting a surf boat bring it ashore. Well, you may keep the thing for the present, and I'll take a bowlful of your parrot stew by way of rent. This the house? You've managed to find yourself pretty comfortable quarters, I see."