The Major laughed.
"Well, I can't turn Jackson off, even for you."
"Well, deon't do it then—only if he gets drunk agine and drops a match into the milk can, fancy! and blows us all up, deon't come back on me, that's all."
They both laughed at this, and the Major said:
"This is the young man I told you about, Mr.—a——"
"Ramsey is my name," said Arthur, rising.
"Mr. Ramsey, this is my partner, Mr. Saulisbury."
"Haow de do," said Saulisbury, with a nod and a glance, which made Arthur hot with wrath, coming as it did after the talk he had heard. Saulisbury did not take the trouble to rise. He merely swung round on his swivel chair and eyed the young stranger.
Arthur was not thick-skinned, and he had been struck for the first time by the lash of caste, and it raised a welt.
He choked with his rage and stood silent, while Saulisbury looked him over, and passed upon his good points, as if he were a horse. There was something in the lazy lift of his eyebrows which maddened Arthur.