"No," I said. "No references."

I thought that would stump him, but on the contrary he looked rather
pleased.

"That is good. References are too frequently evidence of back-stairs
influence."

All this while he kept eying me between mouthfuls. Whenever I seemed
to look away his eyes fairly burned holes in me. Whenever food got in
his beard (which was frequently) be used the napkin more as a shield
behind which to take stock of me than as a means of getting clean
again. By the time his breakfast was finished his beard was a beastly
mess, but he probably had my features from every angle fixed indelibly
in his memory. The sensation was that I had been analyzed and card
indexed.

"I pay good wages," he remarked, and then stuck his face, beard and
all, into the basin of warm water his boy had brought. "Where did you
get that rifle?" he demanded, spluttering, and combing the beard out
with his fingers.

It was on the tip of my tongue to say "At Zanzibar," but, as that might
have started him on a string of questions as to how I came to that
place and whom I knew there, I temporized.

"Oh, I bought it from a man."

"That is no answer!" he retorted.

If I had been possessed of much inclination to play deep games and
match wits with big rascals I suppose I would have answered him civilly
and there and then learned more of his purpose. But I was not
prepossessed by his charms or respectful of his claim to superiority.
The German type super-education never did impress me as compatible with
good breeding or good sense, and it annoyed me to have to lie to him.

"It's all the answer you'll get!" I said.

"Where is your license for it?" he growled.

The game began to amuse me.

"None of your business!" I answered.

"How long have you been in the country!"

"Since I came," I said.

"And you have no license! You have been out shooting. A lucky thing
you came to my camp and not to some other man's! The game laws are
very strict!"

He spoke then to a boy who was standing behind me, giving him very
careful directions in a language of which I did not know one word. The
boy went away.

"The last man who went shooting near Nairobi without a license," he
said, "tried to excuse himself before the magistrate by claiming
ignorance of the law. He was fined a thousand rupees and sentenced to
six months in jail!"

"Very severe!" I said.

"They are altogether too severe," he answered. "I hope you have killed
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