little child here--like a
little child--a little child." Of course I didn't take the slightest
notice, and seeing the time pressed, because we were approaching the
bamboo fence that glittered over the blackened ground of the clearing,
he came to the point. He commenced by being abjectly lachrymose. His
great misfortunes had affected his head. He hoped I would kindly forget
what nothing but his troubles made him say. He didn't mean anything
by it; only the honourable sir did not know what it was to be ruined,
broken down, trampled upon. After this introduction he approached the
matter near his heart, but in such a rambling, ejaculatory, craven
fashion, that for a long time I couldn't make out what he was driving
at. He wanted me to intercede with Jim in his favour. It seemed, too,
to be some sort of money affair. I heard time and again the words,
"Moderate provision--suitable present." He seemed to be claiming value
for something, and he even went the length of saying with some warmth
that life was not worth having if a man were to be robbed of everything.
I did not breathe a word, of course, but neither did I stop my ears.
The gist of the affair, which became clear to me gradually, was in this,
that he regarded himself as entitled to some money in exchange for the
girl. He had brought her up. Somebody else's child. Great trouble and
pains--old man now--suitable present. If the honourable sir would say
a word. . . . I stood still to look at him with curiosity, and fearful
lest I should think him extortionate, I suppose, he hastily brought
himself to make a concession. In consideration of a "suitable present"
given at once, he would, he declared, be willing to undertake the charge
of the girl, "without any other provision--when the time came for the
gentleman to go home." His little yellow face, all crumpled as though it
had been squeezed together, expressed the most anxious, eager avarice.
His voice whined coaxingly, "No more trouble--natural guardian--a sum of
money . . ."

'I stood there and marvelled. That kind of thing, with him, was
evidently a vocation. I discovered suddenly in his cringing attitude
a sort of assurance, as though he had been all his life dealing in
certitudes. He must have thought I was dispassionately considering his
proposal, because he became as sweet as honey. "Every gentleman made
a provision when the time came to go home," he began insinuatingly. I
slammed the little gate. "In this case, Mr.