or a couple of guineas. One was a fat
and pompous ass, the other a withered monkey of a fellow who hopped
about peering through his monocle at the pictures on the walls,
uttering deprecating criticism in the hope of bringing down prices.

"This sketch of Victoria Falls is not bad," he piped, gazing at a thing
of tender mists and spraying water above a titanic rock-bound gorge.
"The left foreground wants breaking up a bit, though!"

"I think you want breaking up a bit," muttered Clive, who had already
made up her mind to sell him nothing, and looking longingly at her
sjambok lying on the sideboard. "Where are Ghostie and the others?"
she demanded.

"They had tea by themselves in Ghostie's room." _Belle_ Helene
proffered the statement rather hesitatingly, and no wonder, in a house
where "_les amies de mes amis sont mes amies_" was the rule. It took
more than that to offend Clive, but she looked astonished.

"Oh, all right, then, let's have ours," she said, and sitting at the
head of her table held the loaf of home-made brown bread firmly to her
breast, carving hefty slices and passing them on the point of the knife
to _belle_ Helene, who jammed them from a tin. Customs were simple and
the fare frugal at Ho-la-le-la. There were only two teaspoons between
six, as Ghostie had the other two in her bedroom. The jam
unfortunately gave out before the globe-trotters got theirs, but there
was some good dripping--if they had only happened to like dripping.
They seemed pained before the end of the meal, and one was heard to
murmur to the other as they went out:

"Would you believe that her father was a clergyman? Bread and
dripping! and jam scratched out of a tin! This comes of living in the
wilds of Africa, I suppose. An entire loss of culture!"

The daughter of the clergyman must have surprised them a good deal by
her unexpected spurt of holiness in refusing to sell pictures on a
Sunday. They wound up their old taxi and went away very much annoyed
at having come so far for nothing.

"Whose then is the Babylonian litter with trappings of scarlet and
gold?" asked Clive, as the Ford rattled off. "You don't mean to say
you fellows came in a thing like that?"

They denied it until seventy times seven. The grey torpedo was
Sarle's. Kenna was of opinion that the owners of the crimson caravan
must be Johannesburgers, and "dripping with it."

"Not Johannesburgers," disputed Clive, with a wry lip. "No; they're
too