“I can't help doing it,” said he; “it's the lonely man's walk. And when I can't see those two lines,” he pointed to two boards in the verandah, “I know I'm drunk and I go to bed.”
It was like the story of the man who kept a frog in his pocket and every time he had a drink he took it out and looked at it.
“What the dickens do you do that for?” asked a companion.
“Well, when I see two frogs,” said he, “I know I've had enough.”
Now I don't believe my friend at Labolabo did exceed, judging by his looks, but if ever man might be excused it was he. He had for servants a very old cook and a slave-boy with a much-scarred face; the marks upon his face proclaimed his former status, but no man could understand the unintelligible jargon he spoke, so no man knew where he came from. It was probably north of German territory. At any rate, he flitted about the bungalow a most inadequate steward.
And he laid the table in the stone house—or rather the shelter with two stone walls, a stone floor, and a broken-down thatch roof, where we had our meals. It was perhaps twenty yards from the bungalow, and on the garden side grew like a wall great bushes of light-green feathery justitia with its yellow, bell-like flowers, while on the other side a little grass-grown plain stretched away to the forest-clad hills behind.
Oh, but it was lonely! and fear is a very catching thing.
“There is nothing to be afraid of in Africa,” said my host, “till the moment there is something, and then you're done.”