“Haven’t you observed that there’s no wool on his head where the wool ought to grow?” said one of the cheeky boys of whom I thought there were far too many about.
“No, I have not,” I answered disdainfully.
“Well, it’s getting mighty sparse,” he proclaimed, with increased cheekiness.
“Oh! that’s holy living,” said the doctor, and leered his goat-like leer.
I thought what horrid people they all were. It appeared that Anthony Kinsella was not an army man as English people understand the term. His rank had been gained in various bodies of African Mounted Police which he had belonged to in the intervals of making and losing money in the gold and diamond capitals. He had a great head for finance they said, but in the midst of successful undertakings and deals he would break away and disappear, and the next heard of him would be that he was living with his boys in a lonely part of the veldt, or had rejoined for a time some old corps of his. He had come adventuring to South Africa when he was quite a boy, knew every inch of the country, and was looked upon as almost a colonial.
“Almost, but not quite,” said Gerald Deshon, “he is one of us. Also, he is a born leader, and no colonial was ever that, though I daresay some will come along by-and-bye as the years roll on.”
“But why does he wear turquoise ear-rings?” I asked involuntarily, thinking no one but Lord Gerry was listening.
I was mistaken.
“Some woman stuck them in his ears, I suppose,” said Mrs Valetta fiercely; and she and Miss Cleeve glared at me across their cards. I stared at them in surprise for a moment, then laughed, though I was not greatly amused.
“I never thought of that.”