u've made a mistake. Better go over and tell the
old boy you've reconsidered his proposition. I'll fix it up with dad.
You'll be able to retire in three years."

"Master Lewis," said Nelton, gravely, "there's lots of people besides
you and the governor that thinks we serving-men says 'Yes, sir, thank
you, sir,' to any one for the syke of a guinea a week and keep. Now you
and the stout party eating the toothpick over yonder knows better."

CHAPTER L

On the following day, while Leighton and Lewis were sorting out their
things and Nelton was packing, Leighton said:

"Nelton, you'd better go back to London with Mr. Lewis."

"Beg your pardon, sir," said Nelton from the depths of a trunk, "but I'd
like to go with you, sir."

"Where to?" asked Leighton, surprised. "Africa?"

"Yes, sir, Africa, sir."

Leighton paused for a moment before he said:

"Nelton, you can't go to Africa, not as a serving-man. You wouldn't be
useful and you wouldn't be comfortable. Africa's a queer place, the
cradle of slavery and the land of the free. A place," he continued, half
to himself, "where masters become men. They are freed from their
servants by the law that says white shall not serve white while the
black looks on lest he be amazed that the gods should wait upon each
other."

He turned back to Nelton and added with a smile that was kindly:

"What would you do in a land where just to be white spells kingship--a
kingship held by the power to stand up to your thirty miles a day, to
bear hunger and thirst without whimpering, to stand steady in danger,
and to shoot straight and keep clean always? It's a land where all the
whites sit down to the same table, but it isn't every white that can get
to the table. You mustn't think I'm picking on you, Nelton. The man
that's going with me is always hard up, but I heard him refuse an offer
of Lord Dubbley's of all expenses and a thousand pounds down to take him
on a trip."

"Lord Dubbley!" repeated Nelton, impressed. "Is there anything w'at a
lord can't 'ave?"

"Yes," said Leighton. "There are still tables you can't sit down at for
just money or name, but they are getting further and further away."

"Mr. Lewis Leighton and servant" attracted considerable attention on the
_Laurentia_, but let it be said to Lewis's credit, or, rather, to the
credit of his abstraction, that he did not notice it. Never before had
Lewis had so much to think about. His parting with his father ought to