“Oh, they still turn up,” answered the Brazilian, it seemed to Matthews not too definitely. Before he could pursue the question farther, Magin clapped his hands. Instantly there appeared at the outer door a barefooted Lur, whose extraordinary cap looked to Matthews even taller and more pontifical than those of his fellow-countrymen at the oars. The Lur, his hands crossed on his girdle, received a rapid order and vanished as silently as he came.
“I wish I knew the lingo like that!” commented Matthews.
Magin waved a deprecatory hand.
“One picks it up soon enough. Besides, what’s the use—with a man like yours? Who is he, by the way? He doesn’t look English.”
“Who? Gaston? He isn’t. He’s French. And he doesn’t know too much of the lingo. But the blighter could get on anywhere. He’s lived all over the place—Algiers, Egypt, Baghdad. He’s been chauffeur to more nabobs in turbans than you can count. He’s a topping mechanic, too. The wheel hasn’t been invented that beggar can’t make go ’round. The only trouble he has is with his own. He keeps time for a year or two, and then something happens to his mainspring and he gets the sack. But he never seems to go home. He always moves on to some place where it’s hotter and dirtier. You should hear his stories! He’s an amusing devil.”
“And perhaps not so different from the rest of us!” threw out Magin. “What flea bites us? Why do you come here, courting destruction in a cockleshell that may any minute split on a rock and spill you to the sharks, when you might be punting some pretty girl up the backwaters of the Thames? Why do I float around in this old ark of reeds and bulrushes, like an elderly Moses in search of a promised land, who should be at home wearing the slippers of middle age? What is it? A sunstroke? This is hardly the country where Goethe’s citrons bloom!”
“Damned if I know!” laughed Matthews. “I fancy we like a bit of a lark!”
The Brazilian laughed too.
“A bit of a lark!” he echoed.
Just then the silent Lur reappeared with a tray.