"Beg your pardon, sir," said Nelton from the depths of a trunk, "but I'd like to go with you, sir."
"Where to?" asked Leighton, surprised. "Africa?"
"Yes, sir, Africa, sir."
Leighton paused for a moment before he said:
"Nelton, you can't go to Africa, not as a serving-man. You wouldn't be useful and you wouldn't be comfortable. Africa's a queer place, the cradle of slavery and the land of the free. A place," he continued, half to himself, "where masters become men. They are freed from their servants by the law that says white shall not serve white while the black looks on lest he be amazed that the gods should wait upon each other."
He turned back to Nelton and added with a smile that was kindly:
"What would you do in a land where just to be white spells kingship—a kingship held by the power to stand up to your thirty miles a day, to bear hunger and thirst without whimpering, to stand steady in danger, and to shoot straight and keep clean always? It's a land where all the whites sit down to the same table, but it isn't every white that can get to the table. You mustn't think I'm picking on you, Nelton. The man that's going with me is always hard up, but I heard him refuse an offer of Lord Dubbley's of all expenses and a thousand pounds down to take him on a trip."
"Lord Dubbley!" repeated Nelton, impressed. "Is there anything w'at a lord can't 'ave?"
"Yes," said Leighton. "There are still tables you can't sit down at for just money or name, but they are getting further and further away."
"Mr. Lewis Leighton and servant" attracted considerable attention on the Laurentia, but let it be said to Lewis's credit, or, rather, to the credit of his abstraction, that he did not notice it. Never before had Lewis had so much to think about. His parting with his father ought to have been more than a formality. Why had it been a mere incident—an incident scarcely salient among the happenings of a busy day? As he looked back, Lewis began to see that it was not yesterday or the day before that he had parted from his father. When was it, then? Suddenly it came upon him that their real farewell had been said in that still, deserted lane overlooking his father's land of dreams.