“Please?”
“Had any grub—anything to eat or drink?” explained Key, illustrating his meaning by graphic touches on mouth and belt.
“No, no; I am not hunger. Also it is good that I eat not. It make me use for the prospect.”
Key smiled gently, and said, with a quaint judicial air:
“Waal, I don’t know as that’s quite necessary; but ef you kin stick it out till that nigger o’ yours comes back, I guess you’ll do for most any camp you’ll strike in this country. Say! Has he got the blankets? Yes! And the grub? So! An’—er—mebbe you didn’t give him money as well?”
“I haf give him one pound to pay the passport, which he forgot. He say policeman will take him if he shows not the ticket. But he will come bring to me the change. He is ein goot boy, and he speaken English feul goot; but perhaps something can happen, and that policeman haf take him, I think.”
Even in a new-comer such credulity was a revelation. I could not help smiling, but the Judge’s clear-cut, impassive features never changed; only, at the mention of the “boy’s” lingual accomplishments, he winked solemnly at me.
The Judge brought matters to a practical issue by telling our friend that he “had much better wait at our waggons for the good boy that speaks English so well.”
“It ain’t,” said Key, “es if he couldn’t find you. A Kaffir kin find you most anywhere if he wants to—’specially them English-speakin’ ones,” he added, with a twinkle in his eyes.
Key did not wait for any reply, but turned the “yaller gripsack” over and looked at the name, “Adolf Soltké,” painted in big white letters.