more than willing to work, and I mean to take
the very first job that comes to hand, let it be what it will. I
believe that if a chap is willing to work he can always get something to
do, though it may not be precisely the kind of work that he would like.
And when once I have secured the means of providing myself with board
and lodging I shall be able to look round for something better."

"Yes--yes, of course you will," responded Grosvenor, a little dubiously.
"I say, old chap," he continued admiringly, "you are a `gritty' beggar,
and no mistake! I wonder if you would mind telling me your story?"

"No, not at all," answered Dick; "there is nothing in it that I need be
ashamed of." And forthwith he proceeded to give his new-found friend a
brief yet clear account of the circumstances which had resulted in his
being reduced to his present plight.

"By Jove, Maitland, I admire you!" exclaimed Grosvenor when Dick had
come to the end of his story. "There is not one man in a hundred who,
under similar circumstances, would have tackled the situation with the
indomitable pluck and whole-hearted belief in himself that you have
shown; and I feel sure that such courage will meet with its just reward.
You are the kind of fellow that always comes out on top, simply because
you will not allow yourself to be kept down. Now, look here, I am going
to make a proposition to you--and, understand me, it is on purely
selfish grounds that I am going to make it. I am going out to South
Africa because I want to forget a--well, a very bitter disappointment
that I have recently sustained, and the particulars of which I will
perhaps tell you some day if you fall in with my proposition, as I hope
you will. The way in which I propose to conquer this disappointment of
mine is to go in for a life of adventure--exploration of the interior,
big-game shooting, and that sort of thing, you understand. I have heard
some most thrilling stories of the wonderful things and people that are
to be found in the interior of Africa, and, while many of them are
doubtless lies, there is evidence enough of a perfectly reliable
character to prove that there is at least a certain amount of truth in
others; and it is my purpose to ascertain at firsthand the exact measure
of that truth. Take, for example, the contention of certain
antiquarians that the ruins of Ophir must exist somewhere upon the east
coast. I have read pretty nearly everything that has been writ