There was silence for a while. A clock ticked softly as if to emphasize the peace that reigned on the park side of Whitehall.
“But you make certain deductions, I take it?” murmured the official.
“I could hardly fail to do that, knowing West Africa as I do,” was the curt answer. Warden was really annoyed with the man. Without wishing him any positive evil, he wondered how far the Foreign Office cult would carry such an exquisite through a Bush campaign, with its wasting fever, its appalling monotony, its pathless wanderings midst foul swamp and rain–soaked forest—perhaps a month’s floundering through quagmire and jungle with a speedy end under a shower of scrap iron fired from some bell–mouthed cannon.
“Will you be good enough to favor me with them?” purred the other, now absorbed in his palms.
“If I had a map—” began Warden, almost contemptuously.
The Under Secretary rose with a certain languid elegance. He was really tired, having worked at the Macedonian gendarmerie regulations until three o’clock that morning. High on the wall, behind Warden’s chair, were several long, narrow, mahogany cases, each fitted with a pendent cord. The Under Secretary pulled one, and a large map of Africa fell from its cover.
“I am fairly well acquainted with the Protectorate, but now you can talk to scale,” he said, going back to his seat and resuming his nonchalant attitude.
Warden, still smarting under a sense of the evident insignificance of Britain beyond the seas in the eyes of its home–dwelling custodians, spoke brusquely enough.
“On the Benuë river, a tributary of the Niger, four hundred miles from the coast,” he said, “you will find the town of Giré in the Yola District. You see it is just within the sphere of British influence. Germany claims the opposite bank. Well, Oku is near Giré. Oku is not on the map——”
“I put it there myself yesterday,” broke in the Under Secretary.