“This is my brother Lindsay,” Drake said by way of introduction.
“I am grateful for your invitation, sir,” Lindsay Drake said, “and gladly accept it. It will enable me to see so much more of my brother.”
“I hope you will make yourself at home,” Gaunt answered, and then took up the Daily Comet which he handed to Edward Drake. “Have you read this?” he asked quietly.
Gaunt went to a cabinet and brought out a box of cigars, which he handed to the soldier.
“So you have just come back from the coast. You are looking remarkably fit,” he remarked pleasantly.
“Yes. I got back this morning. My brother has been telling me that you were in the Congo Free State for some time. A pretty wretched country, I should think, but then, no part of West Africa is very comfortable,” Captain Drake answered, with a frank smile.
The brothers were remarkably alike and were both eminently clean-looking men whom one would trust and like instinctively.
“A dastardly article,” Edward Drake cried indignantly, and threw down the paper. “What is the meaning of it? The Comet is generally fair, in spite of its Yankee methods.”
“It is easily explained, but I shall probably shock you, for we English people pride ourselves upon the honesty of our press. And we are not far wrong, although they have played the game of the Belgians for years past. When King Leopold was alive he spent a portion of his revenue from the Congo in subsidizing the press. In the United States he was more successful than in this country, for here it is impossible to buy the policy of a newspaper. That is in cash—a peerage is not considered a bribe. So the King went to work in his usual diplomatic way. Although the papers are incorruptible, their correspondents are more pliable. Look back and you will remember how few cables have come from Belgium relating to the Congo, and the reason is not far to seek. Many men have come from the Congo with a sheaf of horrors with which they were about to startle Europe—but the horrors have never been made public. The King had a persuasive tongue, he was free with his money, and, voilà tout.”
“It seems incredible,” Drake cried vehemently.