He only smiled. What could I say? He isn't the sort of man one can speak familiarly to. There's Page 14

something in him. One doesn't care to."

"`But what's the object? Are you thinking of keeping possession of the mine?' I asked him.

"`Something of the sort,' he says. Ì am keeping hold.'

"`But all this is as dead as Julius Caesar,' I cried. Ìn fact, you have nothing worth holding on to, Heyst.'

"Òh, I am done with facts,' says he, putting his hand to his helmet sharply with one of his short bows.

Thus dismissed, Davidson went on board his ship, swung her out, and as he was steaming away he watched from the bridge Heyst walking shoreward along the wharf. He marched into the long grass and vanished all but the top of his white cork helmet, which seemed to swim in a green sea.

Then that too disappeared, as if it had sunk into the living depths of the tropical vegetation, which is more jealous of men's conquests than the ocean, and which was about to close over the last vestiges of that liquidated Tropical Belt Coal Company A. Heyst, Manager in the East.

Davidson, a good, simple fellow in his way, was strangely affected. It is to be noted that he knew very little of Heyst. He was one of those whom Heyst's finished courtesy of attitude and intonation most strongly disconcerted. He himself was a fellow fine feeling, I think, though of course he had no more polish than the rest of us. We were naturally a hailfellowwellmet crowd, with standards of our own no worse, I

daresay, than other people's; but polish was not one of them. Davidson's fineness was real enough to alter the course of the steamer he commanded. Instead of passing to the south of Samburan, he mad it his practice to take the passage along the north shore, within about a mile of the wharf.

"He can see us if he likes to see us," remarked Davidson. Then he had an afterthought: "I say! I hope he won't think I am intruding, eh?"

We reassured him on the point of correct behaviour. The sea is open to all.

This slight deviation added some ten miles to Davidson's round trip, but as that was sixteen hundred miles it did not matter much.

"I have told my owner of it," said the conscientious commander of the Sissie.

His owner had a face like an ancient lemon. He was small and wizened which was strange, because generally a Chinaman, as he grows in prosperity, puts on inches of girth and stature. To serve a Chinese firm is not so bad. Once they become convinced you deal straight by them, their confidence becomes unlimited.

You can do no wrong. So Davidson's old Chinaman squeaked hurriedly:

"All right, all right, all right. You do what you like, Captain."

And there was an end of the matter; not altogether, though.