“Have you living with you a young Englishman named Ralph Mackenzie?”
“One named Ralph Kenzie lives with us.”
“Where is he?”
“With my husband on the veldt. I do not know where.”
“Can you find him?”
“No, the veldt is very wide. If you wish to see him you must wait till he comes back.”
“When will that be?”
“I am not his nurse and cannot tell; perhaps in three months, perhaps six.”
Now again they consulted, and once more went on:
“Was the boy, Ralph Mackenzie, or Kenzie, shipwrecked in the India in the year 1824?”