She looked across at the Commissioner with a reproving shake of her pretty head.
"Have I ragged Bones?" asked Sanders, in surprise. "I never thought I was capable of ragging anybody."
"The truth is, Pat," said her brother, "there isn't any rag about the matter. Bones adopted a piccanin."
"A child?"
"A baby about a month old. Its mother died, and some old bird of a witch-doctor was 'chopping' it when Bones appeared on the scene."
Patricia gave a little gurgle of delight and clapped her hands. "Oh, please tell me everything about it."
"It was Sanders who told her of Henry Hamilton Bones, his dire peril and his rescue; it was Hamilton who embellished the story of how Bones had given his adopted son his first bath.
"Just dropped him into a tub and stirred him round with a mop."
Soon after this Bones came blithely up from the beach and across the parade-ground, his large pipe in his mouth, his cane awhirl.
Hamilton watched him from the verandah of the Residency, and called over his shoulder to Patricia.