“Any use? Say, old man, what’s wrong? Are you trying to shake me?” Bent was silent, and Harry Spink continued insidiously: “Ain’t you a mite hard on me? I thought the heathen was just what you was laying for.”
Bent smiled mournfully. “There’s no use trying to convert a renegade.”
“That what I am? Well—all right. But how about the others? Say—let’s order a lap of tea and have it out right here.”
Bent seemed to hesitate; but at length he rose, put back the matting that screened the inner room, and said a word to the proprietor. Presently a scrofulous boy with gazelle eyes brought a brass tray bearing glasses and pipes of kif, gazed earnestly at the stranger in the linen duster, and slid back behind the matting.
“Of course,” Bent began, “a good many people know I am a Baptist missionary”—(“No?” from Spink, incredulously)—“but in the crowd of the bazaar they don’t notice me, and I hear things....”
“Golly! I should suppose you did.”
“I mean, things that may be useful. You know Mr. Blandhorn’s idea....”
A tinge of respectful commiseration veiled the easy impudence of the drummer’s look. “The old man still here, is he?”
“Oh, yes; of course. He will never leave Eloued.”
“And the missus—?”