William winked at me through a cloud of blue tobacco smoke. "I do. He went chasing a rainbow's end North of the Lakes, and I went along with him. You see, Gustav's great-aunt Gretchen appeared to him in a dream and told him there was alluvial gold in a certain river bed, tons of it, easy washing, so we went after it. We didn't find it; but that's neither here nor there; a man must take a chance now and again, and this was the first time Gustav's great-aunt had let him down. She'd given him the straight tip for two Melbourne Cups and a Portugoose lottery in her time. Some girl, great-aunt Gretchen! Anyway there was Gustav and me away up at the tail-end of Nowhere, with the boys yapping for six months' back pay, and we couldn't have bought a feed of hay for a nightmare between us. We just naturally had to do something, so——"
"So you just naturally took to poaching ivory," said I. "I know you. Go on."
William grinned. "Well, a man must live, you know. How'msodever we struck a bonanza vein of m'jufu right away and piled up the long white nuggets in a way that would drive you to poetry. A Somali Arab took the stuff from us on the spot, paying us in cattle at a fifty-per-cent discount, which was reasonable enough, seeing that he ran ninety per cent of the risks. Everything sailed along like a beautiful dream. The elephants was that tame they'd eat out of your hand, and you could stroll out and bowl over a dozen of the silly blighters before breakfast if you felt in the mood. The police hadn't got our address as yet. The only competitor that threatened got buckshot in his breeches, which changed his mind and direction for him very precipitous. The industry boomed and boomed.
"'Another year of this,' says I to myself, 'and I'll retire home and grow roses, drive a pony-trap and be a churchwarden.'
"Then one day the Arab headman blows into camp, and squatting outside our tent, commences to lamentate and pipe his eye in a way that would make you think he'd ate a skinful of prickly pears.
"'What's biting you, Bluebell?' I asked.
"'Allah akbar! God is good but business is rotten,' says he, and pitches a woeful yarn how that columns of Askaris was marching thither and thence, poking their flat noses in where they wasn't invited; Inglische gunboats were riding every wave, scaring seven bells out of the coast dhows, and consequently commerce was sent to blazes and a poor man couldn't get an honest living no-how. The long and short of it was that ivory smuggling was off for the period of the War.
"'What war, you scum?' says Gustav, pricking his freckled ears. 'Who's warring?'
"'The Inglische and Germans, of course,' says the Arab. 'Didn't the B'wana know?'
"'No, the B'wana doesn't,' says I; 'our private Marconi outfit is broke down owing to the monkeys swinging on the wires. Now trot home, you barbarous ape, while me and my colleague throws a ray of pure intellect on the problem. Bassi.'