e, flop, and started kicking with his
tied legs. Laugh! I don't know what there was so funny about it, but I
fairly shouted. What between my laughing and his wriggling, I had a job
in cutting him free. As soon as he could feel his limbs he makes for the
bank, where the governor was standing, crawls up to him on his hands and
knees, and embraces his legs. Gratitude, eh? You could see that being
allowed to live suited that chap down to the ground. The governor gets
his legs away from him gently and just mutters to me:

"'Let's be off. Get him into the boat.'

"It was not difficult," continued Ricardo, after eyeing Schomberg
fixedly for a moment. "He was ready enough to get into the boat,
and--here he is. He would let himself be chopped into small pieces--with
a smile, mind; with a smile!--for the governor. I don't know about him
doing that much for me; but pretty near, pretty near. I did the tying up
and the untying, but he could see who was the boss. And then he knows a
gentleman. A dog knows a gentleman--any dog. It's only some foreigners
that don't know; and nothing can teach them, either."

"And you mean to say," asked Schomberg, disregarding what might have
been annoying for himself in the emphasis of the final remark, "you mean
to say that you left steady employment at good wages for a life like
this?"

"There!" began Ricardo quietly. "That's just what a man like you would
say. You are that tame! I follow a gentleman. That ain't the same thing
as to serve an employer. They give you wages as they'd fling a bone to
a dog, and they expect you to be grateful. It's worse than slavery. You
don't expect a slave that's bought for money to be grateful. And if you
sell your work--what is it but selling your own self? You've got so many
days to live and you sell them one after another. Hey? Who can pay me
enough for my life? Ay! But they throw at you your week's money and
expect you to say 'thank you' before you pick it up."

He mumbled some curses, directed at employers generally, as it seemed,
then blazed out:

"Work be damned! I ain't a dog walking on its hind legs for a bone; I am
a man who's following a gentleman. There's a difference which you will
never understand, Mr. Tame Schomberg."

He yawned slightly. Schomberg, preserving a military stiffness
reinforced by a slight frown, had allowed his thoughts to stray away.
They were busy detailing the image of a young girl--absent--gone--stolen
from him. He became enr