"Mein Gott!" shouted Franz Braun excitedly over the way. "Wass fur eine Stimme! Wunderbar!"
It was the voice that did it. But for it the armed neutrality of the past between the rival firms might have remained in the future; as it was, an hour afterwards Alexander Blooker was politely but steadily refusing to sing a second to the "Wacht am Rhein," although Franz Braun (who had an equally good high tenor, after the fashion of tall burly men) wept on his shoulder and called him "Bruderlein."
"You must to the pastor-house this evening," sighed the big creature at last, "Fraulein Anna, who is to the Pastor Schmidt daughter, will make you sing. She is my verlobte. I will to her be married, but she will make you sing."
Nevertheless, neither her yellow hair nor her blue eyes beguiled Alexander Blooker from his fixed determination; but they sang together for half the night, and the memory of Fraulein Anna's soaring soprana, as the notes of "Oh! for the wings of a dove" floated into the hot air, was with him as, despite the lateness of the hour, he set all in readiness for the morrow. Since on the next day's doings much depended; for it was the yearly market-day, on which all the native traders from far and near came to buy goods. Alexander Blooker, in fact, had hurried his doongah up the sinking river so as to reach the Distant Depot in time for it. His last task was the undoing of one of the small bales which throughout their journey had been the objects of his special care.
"It you tike a' hinch you may as well tike the h'ell," he murmured, as he cut the packing threads by the dim light--for he had refused to use the "Made in Germany" lamp of his predecessor. Then, with a sigh of satisfaction, he held up the top one of the hard-pressed pile of printed cotton handkerchiefs.
"That ought to fetch 'em," he said admiringly. Certainly it might have "fetched" anything and everything. To use heraldic terms, the field of the kerchief was gules, argent and azure, arranged in saltire--otherwise, a Union Jack. An escutcheon of pretence bore the Queen's head regardant, while quarterly, en surtout, were: on the first, gules, three lions passant, or, for England; on the second, or, a lion rampant within a double tressure flory counter flory, gules, for Scotland; on the third, azure, a harp, or, stringed argent, for Ireland; on the fourth?--well!--why the fourth field should have been charged with specimens from a pack of cards, Alexander Blooker did not know. It was a blot on the scutcheon, no doubt; but two days had not sufficed for the printing of a special design, and this was the best he had been able to find. Besides, in a measure, it was true. There was no blinking the fact that even British civilisation was apt to bring gambling and drinking with it.
The next day the whole place was full up with native traders and natives generally. The first sight of them made Alexander Blooker wonder why they were so eager for piece goods, considering how little of them they wore! But then he had hardly realised that beyond that northerly desert lay a huge tract of densely-populated, almost unknown land.
Trade was brisk over the way at Franz Braun's store. The cheap German muslins, guaranteed full length, and packed in convenient carriageable size, went off like smoke; and it was not until the best lots had gone off that a trader thought it worth while to give a perfunctory glance at Alexander Blooker's consignments. Then his eye fell instantly on the heraldic handkerchiefs.
"Sell, how much?" he asked.
Alexander Blooker shook his head. "They are not for sale, sir," he replied loftily. "They are a gift. An Imperial gift from Her Gracious Majesty the Queen of England. Everyone as buys forty yards of English stuff has one of them given in, free, gratis, and for nothin'. Him as buys two, has three, and so on--much the same as parcel post rates."