nest, damn him! Eh, Joe?"

"Oh, we're all honest--as long as we've got enough dibs and the other
fellow hasn't. It reminds me of a good joke I heard in the Durban Club
the other day. There was a difference of opinion among a lot of the men
at lunch as to the shadiness or not of some transaction. At last
someone appealed to old Colonel Bowker, who hadn't taken any part in the
general jaw, and began in this way--`Now, Colonel, as an honest man,
what would you say--' `Eh? as a what?' `Why, an honest man.' `But I
don't know that I am an honest man,' says the old chap, in that dry,
lack-lustre way of his. Of course, there was a big grin all round, and
the first fellow expostulates, `Oh come--hang it all, Colonel. You
don't know--' `No, I don't. I've never been in want of a shilling or a
breakfast in my life.' There was a bigger grin then, for it wasn't a
bad way of putting the thing."

"Haw-haw! damn good!" pronounced Rawson, who had got into the benign
stage of potation, preparatory to the quarrelsome one, wherein he was
wont to become sometimes a dangerous animal, and at all times a
completely objectionable one. "We'll see now, Joe. You two fellows
come up and outspan at my place. We'll have a roaring, sparking time,
by--" some dozen deities and demons--"we will! I don't see a white man
every day, no by--" the same over again--"I don't! Tell your boys to
in-span, and--come along."

"Not to-day, Bully. Can't move the oxen another inch till they've had a
good long rest."

Wyvern could hardly conceal his relief--nor his overmastering disgust
Fleetwood's definition of this noble specimen of civilised humanity
recurred to him--"A thick-set, shaggy, broken-nosed brute whom any jury
would hang at sight without retiring from the box." Yes, there was
nothing wanting from that definition. And he was doomed to see a great
deal more of the subject before him, and knowing this the consciousness
sickened him.

"Well, come up and see my place then," persisted the enemy. "The day's
young yet, and it's only a matter of five mile; and you've got horses.
Tell your boys to saddle up, and we'll all go over together."

We have said that in anything to do with the expedition Wyvern followed
his friend's lead absolutely; wherefore when the latter agreed to this
proposition he made no objection by word or sign, taking for granted
that their interests would be better served in the long run by such a
course.

"Who's this?