"Ah! What?" inquired Boy Bailey rhetorically. "I come here of an afternoon to collect my thoughts an' sweeten the dam by soaking my Trilbies in it an' what happens? I 'm half-deafened by the noise of kissing. I look round, an' what do I see? I ask you—what?"
He brought an explanatory forefinger into play, thick and cylindrical like a damaged candle.
"First, thinks I, here 's a story that's good for drinks in any bar between Dopfontein and Fereira—with perhaps a tar-and-feathering for the young lady thrown in." He nodded meaningly at Margaret. "And it wouldn't be the first time that's happened either."
"Ye-es," said Kamis, who seemed to speak with difficulty. "But you won't get away alive to tell that story."
"Hear me out." Boy Bailey shook his finger. "That 's what I thought first. My second thought was: what 's the sense of making trouble when perhaps there 's a bit to be got by holdin' my tongue? How does that strike you?"
Margaret had been leaning on her stick while he spoke, prodding the earth and looking down. Now she raised her eyes.
"The first thought was the best," she said. "You won't get anything here."
"Eh?" Mr. Bailey was astonished. "You don't understand, Miss," he said. "Ask Snowball, there—he 'll tell you. In this country we don't stand women monkeying with niggers. Hell—no. It 's worth, well—"
"Not a penny," said Margaret. "I don't care in the least whom you tell. But—not one penny."
Kamis was listening in silence. Margaret smiled at him and he shook his head. On the top of the wall Mr. Bailey leaned forward persuasively. He had something the air, in so far as his limitations permitted, of benevolence wrestling with obstinacy, the air which in auctioneers is an asset.