"You 've got it," replied the photograph's original. "Older, my dear sir, and it may be meatier; but the same man in the main, and happy to make the acquaintance of an old friend's husband."
His impudence cost him an effort in face of the Boer's stare of contemptuous amusement, a stare which comprehended, item by item, each article of his grotesque attire and came to rest, without diminishing its intensity, upon the specious, unstable countenance.
"Allemachtag," was the Boer's only reply, as he completed his survey.
"I don't think you saw Bailey, that time we were married, Christian," said Mrs. du Preez. "But he was a dear old friend of mine."
Christian nodded. "You walked here?" he inquired of the guest. On the Karoo, the decent man does not travel afoot, and none of the three others who were present missed the implication of the inquiry. Mrs. du Preez colored hotly; Boy Bailey introduced his celebrated wave of the hand.
"I see you know what walking means," he replied. "It ain't a human occupation—is it now? What I say is—if man had been meant for a voetganger (a walker)"—he watched the effect of the Dutch word on the Boer—"he 'd have been made with four feet. Is n't that right? You bet your shirt it is."
"My shirt." Christian seemed puzzled for the moment, though the phrase was one which his wife used. She watched him uneasily. "Oh, I see. Yes, you can keep that shirt you 've got on. I don't want it."
Boy Bailey made him a bow. "Ah, thanks. A shirt more or less don't matter, does it?"
Christian turned to Paul. "You brought him in?"
"Yes," answered Paul.