Jack said he would go—he was expected there.
“Stop, Jack, you’re not so bad that you can’t talk sense. You know what old Sloeman means, and what his game is. You have always been straight, whatever they can say of you. Don’t have anything to do with that old thief!”
“Yes, and a lot of good being straight has done me. Old Sloeman is a good deal better than the lot who turn their backs on me, and, thief or not, I am going to work with him?” Jack said as he turned to leave the place.
Kitty gave a look at him as he lurched to the door, and then determined that she would have her way.
“Well, Jack, have a drink before you go. I am sorry for what I said just now. We will have a drink together,” said Kitty, as she took down a bottle of whiskey and some soda-water. Jack did not refuse—he seldom did refuse such an offer.
“Well, that will about finish him. It seems a shame, but he shan’t go up there to-night, and that will settle it,” she thought to herself as she more than half filled a tumbler with whiskey.
“That is rather a stiffish drink,” he said as he finished it. Then he had another, and forgot all about going up to Sloeman’s, and Kitty called her Kaffir boy to shut up the place and put Jack to bed in the spare room.
The next morning, when she was at her breakfast, her Kaffir servant came running and showing his white teeth. “The baas I put to bed last night, him plenty bad this morning, Missis.”
“Take him this, he will get all right,” said Kitty, giving him some brandy in a glass and a bottle of soda-water. “That won’t hurt him, though he will have to knock it off and pull himself together, for this child is going to look after him,” she added to herself.
Very soon the Kaffir came back. “The baas he drink the brandy and throw de soda at me. I think him going mad,” he said, rubbing his head.