Bertram admitted the difficulty, and, with a sigh of intense relief, removed his belt and cross-belts and all that unto them pertained. And, as he sank into the chair with a grateful heart, entered Ali Suleiman, whom he had not seen for an hour, bearing in one huge paw a great mug of steaming tea, and in the other a thick plate of thicker biscuits.
Bertram could have wrung the hand that fed him. Never before in the history of tea had a cup of tea been so welcome.
“Heaven reward you as I never can,” quoth Bertram, as he drank. “Where on earth did you raise it?”
“Oh, sah!” beamed Ali. “Master not mentioning it. I am knowing cook-fellow at R.E. Sergeants’ Mess, and saying my frien’ Sergeant Jones, R.E., wanting cup of tea and biscuits at bunder P.D.Q.”
“P.D.Q.?” enquired Bertram.
“Yessah, all ’e same ‘pretty dam quick’—and bringing it to Bwana by mistake,” replied Ali, the son of Suleiman.
“But isn’t there some mistake?” asked the puzzled youth. “I don’t want to . . .”
“Lookere,” interrupted the large red man, “you don’ wanter discover no mistakes, not until you drunk that tea, you don’t. . . . You push that daown yore neck and then give that nigger a cent an’ tell ’im to be less careful nex’ time. You don’ wanter discourage a good lad like that, you don’t. Not ’arf, you do.”
“But—Sergeant Jones’s tea” began Bertram, looking unhappily at the half-emptied cup.
“Sergeant Jones’s tea!” mimicked the rude red man, in a high falsetto. “If ole Shifter Jones drunk a cup o’ tea it’d be in all the paipers nex’ mornin’, it would. Not arf it wouldn’t. Don’ believe ’e ever tasted tea, I don’t, an’ if he did—”