They washed in the open air, sluicing themselves from buckets, and dressed again in clean dungarees in another hut.
"Skoff (food) 'll be ready by now," said Mills; "but I think a gargle's the first thing. You'll have whisky, or gin?"
The Frenchman pronounced for whisky, and took it neat. Mills stared.
"If I took off a dose like that," he observed, "I should be as drunk as an owl. You know how to shift it!"
"Eh?"
"Gimme patience," prayed the trader. "You bleat like a yowe. I said you can take it, the drink. Savvy? Wena poosa meningi sterrik. Have some more?"
"Oh yais," smiled the guest. "Ver' good w'isky, eh?"
He tossed off another four fingers of the liquor, and they sat down to their meal. The food was such as most tables in Manicaland offered. Everything was tinned, and the menu ran the gamut of edibles from roast capon (cold) to pate de foie gras in a pot. When they had finished Mills passed over his tobacco and sat back. He watched the other light up and blow a white cloud, and then spoke.
"Look here, Frenchy," he said, looking at him steadily; "I don't quite cotton to you, and I think it proper you should say a bit more than you have said."
"Eh!" queried the other, smiling.