erous?' Drake leaned suddenly forward. His habit of putting
questions abrupt and straight to the point had discomposed Miss Le
Mesurier upon an occasion before. She answered hurriedly. 'I mean--you
spoke as if you meant that class of work was above your own.'

'Oh, there's no basis of comparison.'

Clarice seized the opportunity, and inquired after the prospects of his
work in Matanga.

'The place should do,' said Drake. 'The land's good, there's a river
running through, and I have got picked men to settle on it; all English,
that's the point. But you said generous. I don't see.'

Clarice switched him on the subject of English colonisation. 'It's
necessary to have Englishmen to start it? Why?'

'Oh, well,' said Drake. 'It's easy enough to see, if you can compare
English with the foreign colonies.' He rose from his chair and launched
forth, walking about the room. 'Look at the Germans! There are seven
hundred German colonists, all told, in the German colonies, and each of
them costs the German tax-payer little short of eight hundred a year. How
many of them are in the English colonies? And what's the reason? Why,
they want to have the institutions of the Fatherland ready-made in five
minutes. They need the colonies made before they can prosper in it. The
French are better, but they are spoilt by officialdom. The Englishman
just adapts himself to the conditions, and sets to work to adapt the
conditions to himself too. He strikes a sort of mean, and the Home
Government leaves him alone--leaves him too much alone some say, and
rightly, in cases. There's a distinction to be drawn, and it's difficult
to draw it so far away. It's this, when the colony's made, then it isn't
a bad thing for the Government to keep a fairly tight hold on it. But in
the making it's best left to itself; you can lay a cable between London
and a colony too soon for the good of that colony. There's no fear of the
colonist forgetting the mother country--he may forget the Home
Government, does at times, and then there's a mistake or two. But that's
the defect of the quality.' He checked himself abruptly. 'But I'm running
away from what we were talking about. Yes; I think we shall do all right
in Matanga.'

'You don't mean to go back there yourself?'

'Not to live there. To tell the truth, I think there's a man or two
wanted in England just now, who has had a practical experience of our
colonies.' Drake spoke without the least trace of boastfulness