aid King Charles; "they don't understand
that sort of thing out there, and, besides, the idea is not original.
Didn't Livingstone try that tack?"

"Yes, but people have forgotten Livingstone and his methods. It is now
the explosive bullet and the elephant gun. I intend to learn the
language of the different native tribes I meet, and if a chief opposes
me and will not allow me to pass through his territory, and if I find I
cannot win him over to my side by persuasive talk, then I shall go
round."

"And what is to be the outcome of it all?" cried Charles. "What is your
object?"

"Fame, my boy, fame," cried Cromwell, enthusiastically, flinging the
chair from under him and pacing the narrow room. "If I can get from
coast to coast without taking the life of a single native, won't that
be something greater than all the play-acting from now till Doomsday?"

"I suppose it will," said the King, gloomily; "but you must remember
you are the only friend I have, and I have reached an age when a man
does not pick up friends readily."

Cromwell stopped in his walk and grasped the King by the hand. "Are you
not the only friend I have," he said; "and why can you not abandon this
ghastly sham and come with me, as I asked you to at first? How can you
hesitate when you think of the glorious freedom of the African forest,
and compare it with this cribbed and cabined and confined business we
are now at?"

The King shook his head slowly, and knocked the ashes from his pipe. He
seemed to have some trouble in keeping it alight, probably because of
the prohibition on the wall.

"As I said before," replied the King, "I am too old. There are no pubs
in the African forest where a man can get a glass of beer when he wants
it. No, Ormond, African travel is not for me. If you are resolved to
go, go and God bless you; I will stay at home and carefully nurse your
fame. I shall from time to time drop appetising little paragraphs into
the papers about your wanderings, and when you are ready to come back
to England, all England will be ready to listen to you. You know how
interest is worked up in the theatrical business by judicious puffing
in the papers, and I imagine African exploration requires much the same
treatment. If it were not for the Press, my boy, you could explore
Africa till you were blind and nobody would hear a word about it, so I
will be your advance agent and make ready for your home-coming."

At this point in the conversation b