Chapter Eight.
A New Life
I awoke from a sound sleep, or rather was awakened by a knocking at the door. Remembering my disclaimer of susceptibility, I hardly like to own the persistency wherewith my dreams were haunted by visions of my hostess. But now the sun was already up, and as I shouted “Come in,” the opening door admitted a broad dazzling flash of his new-born radiance together with the form of a small Kafir girl bearing a cup of coffee. Sounds, too, of busy life came from outside.
A shave and a cool refreshing tub, and it did not take me long to get into my clothes. There was no one about the house, except a Kafir girl sweeping the stoep, but I heard voices in the direction of the kraals, and thither wending I came upon a great enclosure filled with cattle, and the hissing squirt of milk into zinc pails told what was going forward. As I climbed over the gate, the voices increased in volume, and expressed anger, not to say menace. Then a sight met my eyes, causing me to move forward a little quicker.
Brian Matterson was standing at the further end, and, confronting him, a huge Kafir. The latter was talking volubly in his own tongue, whose rolling bass seemed to convey a ferocity which even to my inexperienced ear was unmistakable. Moreover, he seemed to emphasise his arguments, whatever they, were, with a very suggestive grip upon a pair of hardwood sticks, which he held one in each hand. But Brian, who was totally unarmed, stood, one hand in his trousers pocket, talking quietly, and absolutely and entirely at his ease.
Suddenly the savage, an evil-looking, ochre-smeared ruffian, raised his voice to a roar of menace, and at the same time one of the sticks whirled through the air. But Brian merely stepped back a pace, and then what followed was beautiful to behold. His fists were playing like the drumsticks of a kettledrum, and down went his towering assailant into the dust of the cattle kraal – then springing up, down he went again. It was all done in a moment, before I could even reach the spot.
“That you, Holt?” said Brian, without, however, taking his eyes off his discomfited adversary, to whom he continued to address some further remarks in the tongue of the Amaxosa, and who, shuffling along the ground, rose to his feet some little way off and slunk away out of the enclosure, snarling out a deep-toned running fire of what sounded not in the least like benediction.
“What’s the row?” I said.
“Oh, nothing much. Rum thing, though, it should have happened the very first glimpse you get of us. Still, it had to be. That fellow, Sibuko, was with us here once, but we turned him off. He came back this morning, and it’s my belief he came back on purpose to have a row – and he’s got his wish.”
“Rather,” I said, in hearty admiration for the masterly way in which my former schoolfellow had reduced to order a formidable and muscular barbarian, an encounter with whom I myself would far rather have avoided than welcomed. “You did that well, Brian. Yet I don’t remember you as a superlative bruiser at old Wankley’s.”
“Nor am I now. After all, it’s nothing. These chaps can’t use their fists, you know.”
“How about their sticks?”
“Yes, that comes in. A smart Kafir with a couple of kerries is often a large contract – quickness is the great thing with either. Still, it’s unpleasant, and I don’t care about it. But you’ll hardly believe me when I tell you the necessity may not arise once in a year. Only, you can’t be defied on your own place. I told that chap to clear, and he answered point-blank that he wouldn’t. There was only one way of settling that difference of opinion, you see.”
And he turned to give an order to one of his Kafirs, calm, equable, as if nothing had happened.
“Have a smoke,” he went on, “or is it too early for you? Yes? Oh well, perhaps a fellow is better in moderation. Though I expect you’ll soon tumble into all our ways.” And he filled and lighted his pipe, while we chatted, but not for a moment did his attention slacken from what he was engaged upon, the superintending of the milking to wit.
It was a lovely cloudless morning, and there was something in the clear dry atmosphere that was exhilarating in the extreme. How would I take to this sort of life? I thought to myself. Already the old life seemed far away, and all behind. The charm of this new life – its freedom and glorious climate – were settling upon me; why should I not embark in it? I had the means, if I started carefully and modestly. I did not imagine for a moment there was a fortune in it, but neither was there in the branch of business in which my lines had hitherto been cast. And somehow, woven in with such meditations was already the image of Beryl Matterson; which was quite too absurd, remembering that twenty-four hours ago I had never seen her.
“Don’t you ever carry a six-shooter, Matterson?” I said, my mind reverting to the little difference of opinion I had just seen so effectually settled.
“Very seldom. You see, we are not outside the law here, and if I shot a fellow I should almost certainly find myself in a nasty awkward mess.”
“What – even in self-defence?”
“Even then. The English law is curiously wooden-headed on some points. The ‘sacredness of human life’ is one of them, especially with a judge or two we have here who will always go against a white man in favour of a Kafir; and if you were known to habitually carry arms it would go further against you still.”
“But what about your sister?”
“That’s different. There isn’t a jury on the frontier would convict a woman for shooting a Kafir, because they know perfectly well that such a thing couldn’t happen except in a case of the direst necessity. In fact, there are far too few women and girls who are able to take care of themselves, and they all ought to be.”
“I should very much think so,” I said, and the time was to come when these remarks were destined to recur to my mind with vivid clearness and weighty force.
“Hallo!” said Brian, “here’s the governor coming back.” And following his glance, I saw the white tent of a trap coming down the road from the opposite direction to that of our way the evening before. A minute or so more and it drew up opposite the kraals.
“Don’t say anything about what you’ve just seen, Holt,” he went on, as we made our way to the gate. “He doesn’t like that sort of thing, but for all that it’s sometimes inevitable.”
Of course I gave him the required assurance, and as we reached the gate the buggy pulled up, and there got out a strongly-built man of about fifty-five. He had a quiet-looking but determined face, which reminded me more of Beryl than of Brian, and a thick, full, brown beard, somewhat streaked with grey, and as Brian speedily introduced us his welcome of me was all that could be desired in the way of frank cordiality.
“I hope you will be able to make some stay with us, Mr Holt,” he said. “You have spent the night here, and, I take it, have seen what we have to offer you; but such as it is, you are very welcome.”
So this was Brian’s father! I confess he inspired in me more than a feeling of cordiality – for it was one of admiration. I knew men pretty well by that time, and was a bit of a cynic on the subject; but now I saw before me one whom I read as rather a unique specimen – a man who would say what he meant, and who would act as his judgment dictated, no matter what the whole world might think – a man whose word would be as his bond, even though it were to his own detriment; in short, in this frontier stock-farmer I saw a man who, no matter where he might be put down, or under what circumstances, would be a very tower of reliability: cool, intrepid, sound of judgment, come good, come ill. And in all my subsequent friendship with Septimus Matterson, I never had cause to swerve one hair’s breadth from my first impression – save in one instance only.
Now as two Kafirs came up to stand at the horses’ heads, somebody else jumped out of the buggy – a boy to wit, whom Mr Matterson promptly introduced as his youngest son. He was a boy of about fourteen, a good-looking boy, but with a roving mischievous look in his face; a boy, in short, to whom I did not take one bit. Equally readily I could see that he did not take to me.
“Just out from England, hey?” said this hopeful. “Man, but you’ll find it different here.”
Now this was hardly the form of address to be looked for from a youngster of his tender age to a man very considerably his senior; moreover, there was something patronising about it which prejudiced me against the speaker; in fact, I set him down at once as an unlicked cub. But of course I showed no sign of what I was thinking, and the work Brian had been superintending being at an end, we all went round to count the flocks – I don’t mean I bore any part in that operation, not then – and adjourned to the house for breakfast.
Chapter Nine.
Mainly Venatorial
Beryl looked wholly fresh and delightful as she welcomed us, and it was hard to believe she had been up nearly three hours “seeing to things,” as Brian put it. There was a good deal of talk, of wholly local interest, with regard to the expeditions of both father and son, and the results thereof, but even it was by no means without interest to me, for, after all, it let me into so much of the inner life of these strange new surroundings. Presently the young hopeful, looking up from a large plateful of oatmeal porridge and milk, observed —
“I say, Brian, let’s go down to Zwaart Kloof this morning and try for a bushbuck ram.”
“Well, I don’t know. Yes. Perhaps Mr Holt would like to try his luck. What do you say, Holt?”
I said I’d like nothing better, but for the trifling drawback that I had no gun – being only a shipwrecked mariner who had come away with nothing but the clothes he stood up in. But this was speedily over-ruled. There were plenty of guns in the house. No difficulty about that.
“Can you shoot, Mr Holt?” said the youngster, planting both elbows on the table, and eyeing me with rather disdainful incredulity.
“Well, yes, I can shoot,” I said. “Moderately, that is.”
“But you’re out from England,” went on the cub, as though that settled the matter.
“George, you little ass, shut up, and go and tell them to saddle up Bles and Punch for us,” said Brian. “You can ride Jack.”
A volume of expostulation in favour of some other steed having been silenced by Brian in quiet and peremptory fashion, the hopeful went out.
“I’m afraid you’ll find George rather a spoilt boy, Mr Holt,” said Beryl. “He and Iris seem to get their own way more than they ought. They are the little ones, you see.”
Of course I rejoined that it was quite natural – reserving my own opinion. In the case of the little girl it was candid: in the other – well “boy” to me is apt to spell horror; but a spoilt boy, and just a boy of George Matterson’s age, well – to fit him, my vocabulary has never yet been able to invent an adequate superlative.
“You’d better have a shot gun, Holt,” said Brian, as we started. “I always use one in thick bush; it’s all close shooting.”
He handed me a double Number Twelve bore, of first-rate make and poise, and kept in first-rate order too, and some treble A cartridges.
“You won’t use all those. You’ll be lucky if you get two fair and square shots,” he remarked.
“Good luck, Mr Holt,” called out Beryl after us.
I began to feel nervous. I was only an ordinary shot, and of this form of sport was, of course, utterly without experience – and said as much.
“You only shoot tame pheasants in England, don’t you, Mr Holt?” said George, in a tone that made me wish I could turn him into one of the fowl aforesaid. Could it really be that this impudent young pup was Beryl’s brother – or Brian’s too, for the matter of that?
We cantered down the valley, then struck up a lateral spur, and rounding it came upon a deep kloof running far up into the hillside – its side black with dense bush, the boerboen and plumed euphorbia, and half a dozen other varieties whose names I didn’t know then.
“Here, Tiger, Ratels, get to heel!” cried Brian, apostrophising the rough-haired dogs which had followed, all excited, at our horses’ heels. “George, take Mr Holt on to the opening above the little krantz. You know where to post him. If he doesn’t get a shot there he won’t get one anywhere. Then come back to me.”
We made a bit of a circuit, and some twenty minutes later found ourselves in a little open space, surrounded on three sides by dense bush, while the fourth seemed to be the brink of a precipitous fall in the ground. Here I was carefully posted in the combined cover of an ant-heap and a small mimosa.
“That’s where they always break cover,” whispered George. “Man, but you mustn’t make a sound. Don’t move – don’t cough, even. So long.”
Left alone, my nerves were all athrill with excitement, and I believe my hand shook. A couple of spreuws perched upon an adjoining bush, melodiously whistling, then, become mysteriously aware of my presence, flashed off – a pair of green-blue streaks, their note changed to one of alarm. Would they scare the game and turn it back? I thought agonisingly. Heavens! what if I should shoot badly, and miss? What a fool I should look – and this was, in a way, my début!
The space the quarry would have to cross was about twenty yards. Could I stop it in that distance? No, I was sure I could not. I was feeling far too shaky, far too eager – a nervous condition invariably fatal, at any rate in my own case, to effective execution.
The silence settled down around me, broken only by the occasional note of a bird. Then I started. What was that? The yapping of a dog, then another, then a chorus of excited yelps; and as it drew rapidly nearer I realised that they were on the track of something.
Exactly from the direction George had indicated, it came – a quick bounding rush. A noble antelope leapt out into the open. Its pointed, slightly spiral horns and dilated eye, the almost black hide with the white belly stripe, seemed photographed in my brain as I pressed the trigger, and – missed. Like a streak of dark lightning it shot across the open, and my left barrel spoke, a fraction of a second before it disappeared over the declivity. But in that fraction of a second I had seen the convulsive start, the unmistakable squirm, and could have hurrahed aloud.
I remained still, however, slipping in a couple of fresh cartridges. Another might come out. But it did not; instead, the dogs appeared hot foot on the scent, and close behind them George.
“Hallo, Mr Holt. Where’s the buck?” cried that youth, with a derisive grin. “Man, but we drove him right over you.”
“And I’ve driven him right over there,” pointing to the brow of the declivity.
“So it seems. Man! but you won’t get such a chance again in a hurry.”
“Well, Holt? No luck, eh?” said Brian, appearing on the scene.
“Well, it depends on whether you look at it from my point of view or the buck’s,” I said with designed coolness. “If the latter, you’re right.”
“Eh? Why – ”
Something of a clamour beneath interrupted him: the fierce worrying of dogs, and the half bellow, half scream, of a bush-buck ram in the last fight for his life. We did not pause a moment then. Flinging themselves from their horses – mine had been left much higher up – they plunged down, I following, leaping from rock to rock. There lay my quarry, unable to rise save on his forelegs, yet savagely menacing with his pointed horns the three dogs which were leaping and snarling frantically around him.
“He’s done for – hit rather far back, though,” said Brian, calling off the dogs. “Put another shot into him, Holt – forward this time.”
I did, and the animal at once stiffened out, lifeless.
“Maagtig! but he’s a fine ram,” cried George, while congenially amusing himself by cutting the beast’s throat. “You didn’t hit him by accident, Mr Holt, hey?”
“Bad accident for the buck, anyway,” said Brian with a dry laugh. “Well done, Holt. I congratulate you. Thirteen-inch horns! We’ll have them done up for you as a trophy of your first bushbuck.”
I was secretly not a little pleased with myself, as the buck, having been cleaned, was loaded up behind my saddle, and we took our way homewards, for Brian declared that we might be all day and not get anything like so good a chance again, without beaters and with only three dogs. Moreover, it was rather out of season, and they had come out solely on my account. I, however, was amply content; indeed, I sneakingly thought it just as well not to spoil the effect of my first prowess by potential and subsequent misses.
Yes, I felt decidedly satisfied with myself and at peace with all the world, as we drew near the homestead an hour or so later, with my quarry strapped behind my saddle. I heeded not – was rather proud, in fact – of the widening patch of gore which the movement of the horse caused to gather upon my trouser leg during our progress. The “fellow just out from home,” the “raw Britisher,” had vindicated himself. Even that young rascal George seemed to treat me with a shade of newly-fledged respect, and the very intonations in the voices of a couple of Kaffirs hanging around, as we rode up, were intelligible to me as witnessing to my prowess. Beryl and her father, who were sitting on the stoep when we arrived, came out to meet us.
“Well done, Mr Holt!” said the former. “I’m so glad you’ve had some luck.”
“I think it was due to your last aspiration, Miss Matterson,” I answered, feeling with a satisfaction wholly uncalled for by the occasion that somehow or other I had gone up in her estimation.
“Got him just above the krantz in the Zwaart Kloof, did you?” commented her father. “That’s the place where you’ll nearly always get a chance. I suppose this is your first experience of this kind of sport; but I can tell you there’s many a man, not a bad shot either, who doesn’t fall into it just so soon. George, take the horses round – let’s see, keep Bles up though, I may want him later. And now we’ll go in to dinner.”
Throughout that welcome repast I was plying my host eagerly with questions as to the conditions of colonial life, and the vagaries of stock-farming in general; and wondering what a long while ago it seemed since I started for that fateful row at Whiddlecombe Regis, an unconscious voyage of discovery which should terminate in this.
“There are a sight too many Kafirs near us,” he said, in answer to one of my questions. “That’s the great drawback. They take too much toll of our stock, and besides, they have been getting restless lately. Some people set up a periodical scare, but I don’t believe in that sort of thing. As they are here we must rub along with them as best we can, and I must say they bother me less than they do – or seem to do – some others. But you never know what to expect with savages.”
“I suppose not,” I answered, thinking of the tussle I had witnessed that morning, and remembering the malignant and vengeful looks of the defeated barbarian as he slunk out by the cattle kraal. “But couldn’t they render the position – well, rather impossible for you, here, for instance, if they were to combine.”
“That’s just it – they can’t combine. But if you know how to take them, and not expect to find angels under a red blanket and a daub of root klip, you can pull with them as well as with anybody else. Only you must never for a moment let them imagine you’re afraid of them.”
I little thought then how near was the time when I should witness Septimus Matterson’s theory tested – and that severely. Yet that was to come, and it was only the beginning of a series of stirring events calling for readiness of resource and cool judgment and iron courage. The sun was shining now, the sky unclouded. Yet was the storm behind, gathering afar.
Chapter Ten.
Two Pacts
It will be remembered that my first impressions as regarded Beryl Matterson savoured somewhat of disappointment. By the time I had dwelt a week beneath the same roof I could only marvel how such could have been the case. Now I had dwelt beneath it a month, and the prospect of life apart from her presence seemed not worth contemplating. To such a pass had things come.
What a time that had been – golden, idyllic! When I was not accompanying Brian or his father upon their rides or walks, on stock supervision or sport intent, I would inveigle Beryl forth on the plea of being put au courant with the flora and fauna of the country. Nor was the plea a fictitious one, for I had always had a leaning towards natural history, albeit precious little time or opportunity for indulging the same; but now, with such a companion, and such a taste in common! Ah, those long rides, the glorious sense of freedom and glowing enjoyment, the exhilaration of the atmosphere, the deep unclouded blue of the heavens, the rolling bush country – earth, air, foliage, all athrill with pulsating life, animal or insect life, never silent, never for a moment still – small wonder that those days should go by as in a very dream of Paradise!
But real life is not idyllic, only its episodes, and they but rarely; wherefore, fearing to outstay my welcome, I mooted the subject of moving on. Brian’s blank stare of amazement was something to behold.
“Why, Holt, you’ve only just begun to know us,” he said, “and it would be affectation to suppose you are not enjoying your stay, because any one could see that you are, even if you hadn’t said so yourself. You can’t leave us yet. You mustn’t think of it – must he, dad?”
“Certainly not,” declared Septimus Matterson with all his wonted decision. “Why, Iris would cry her eyes out. She’s quite fallen in love with you, Holt.”
For the little girl had returned home, and her seaside adventure – with me in the rôle of rescuing hero – had been made known. She had bound Brian to secrecy on the subject during her absence, lest her amusements should be restricted and herself placed under an irksome surveillance. Further than that he refused to be bound, nor did she herself desire it. On receipt of which tidings I really have the most confused recollection of what was said to me by each and all, or of the banalities I stuttered out as the nearest approach to a “suitable reply.” The only definite thing that lives in my memory is the physical agony I strove to repress what time Septimus Matterson’s iron grip enclosed my own far from delicate paw, while he declared that his house was henceforth as much my home as it was that of his own children, whenever and as long as I chose to make use of it – a declaration which went far to neutralise the excruciating experience which emphasised it, remembering that the said home was that of Beryl also. Even George was graciously pleased to approve of me, and in the result ceased to play me monkey tricks or to make me the butt of his covert impertinence.
“Man, Mr Holt, but that was fine!” he pronounced in reference to the episode. “Ja, I’d like to have been there! But I thought fellows from England couldn’t do anything of that sort.”
“Let it be a lesson to you then, George,” I said with dignity, “that ‘fellows from England’ are not necessarily asses.”
Then I felt foolish, for the remark savoured of a touch of complacent brag, and Beryl was a witness. But she seemed to read my inner confusion, and smiled reassuringly.
“There was Trask,” went on the imp; “when he first came out he couldn’t hit a house unless he was shut up inside it. He couldn’t sit a horse either. Ja, we used to have fun out of Trask.”
“I should say Mr Trask, George,” said Beryl.
The correction was received with a lordly contempt, as the young rascal went on —
“Can you sit a bucking horse, Mr Holt?”
“Did you ever hear what the man said when he was asked if he could open oysters, George?” I said.
“No. What?”
“I’ve never tried.”
He looked puzzled, then annoyed. Beryl and Iris broke into a peal of laughter.
“Don’t see where any joke comes in,” he grunted. “But why not have a try now, Mr Holt? There’s Bontebok up in the stable. He always bucks when you first get on him. I’ll go and tell Sixpence to saddle him up just now.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, George,” pronounced Iris decisively. “You’re a great deal too cheeky. I wonder Mr Holt stands it. Besides, we want him to go out with us.”
That dear little girl! I was fond of her already, but more than ever now that she had come to my rescue in that whole-hearted and tactful fashion. For I did not want to make an exhibition of myself and furnish forth a circus entertainment with Beryl for audience; and it would have been difficult, unaided, to have backed out of what was in effect a challenge, without jeopardising my reputation.
“Another time, George. Another time,” I answered loftily.
“Right you are; I’ll tell them to keep Bontebok up,” came the ready response. “He’ll be livelier in the morning.”
The young villain, you see, was not going to let me down so easily.
“But I may not be. Those circus tricks are all very well for an unfledged young monkey like you, George, but a middle-aged buffer isn’t always on for that sort of game.”
“Middle-aged buffer! That’s good,” jeered the young rascal. “Why, you and Brian were at school together.”
“Oh, George, will you scoot?” interrupted Iris, emphasising the injunction with a far from gentle push. “You’re getting such a bore, you know. Go and make yourself useful in some way, if you can. Get the air-gun and go and shoot some mouse birds. Brian and dad both want some tails to clean their pipes with.”
“Can’t. Dad’d object. It’s Sunday.”
“Well, anyhow – scoot. I don’t want you. So long.”
“I’m on for a swim in the dam,” was the answer. “I’ll go and rout out Brian.”
Iris, you see, ruled the house, including George. Including me, I might add; but for me her rule was light. She was almost more grateful to me for keeping my own counsel upon it than for getting her out of her perilous predicament. Anyhow, we were great friends, and she teased me with the same freedom and whole-heartedness that she teased Brian, who idolised her; but in her bright, pretty, engaging little ways there was none of the covert impudence that characterised Master George’s attempts at banter.
“I hear you are going to stay with us altogether, Mr Holt,” she broke out suddenly an hour later as we were resting, having gained the objective of our Sunday afternoon stroll – a beautiful spot deep down in a kloof, where a pile of rocks all festooned with maidenhair fern overhung a large water-hole, and on the lower side steep upsweeping slopes of foliage cut a sharp V of green and gold against the azure of an unclouded sky, while the varied call and whistle of birds kept up a continuous echo of melody. Whoever it was who gave rise to the saying that South African birds have no song is guilty of libel, for the varying and melodious cheeriness of the bird voices, at any rate in bush country, constitutes one of its greatest charms, and the very unfamiliarity of these is in effective keeping with the wildness of the surroundings.
“Well, for some little time, at any rate,” I answered.
“I’m glad. You’re rather a good chap, you know, Mr Holt.”
Beryl and I exchanged glances, she intensely amused, while I laughed outright.
“I didn’t know it, Iris; but am delighted to learn the fact on your indisputable authority,” I answered.
She flung a handful of grass sprays at me, which she had been absently plucking.
“Don’t use those beastly long words,” she said. “No, but really I am glad.”
The straight glance of the pretty blue eyes full upon my face expressed all a delightful child’s genuine liking. I own to having felt in my innermost self considerably moved thereby.
“I must take off my hat this time,” I said, suiting the action to the word with a sweep of mock elaboration. “Miss Matterson, will you second the resolution just proposed?” I added, turning to Beryl.
“Ah, why do you always say ‘Miss Matterson’?” interrupted Iris decisively. “It’s so stiff. Why don’t you say ‘Beryl’?”
“May I?” was the obvious rejoinder – indeed, the only possible one.
“Why not, Mr Holt? I’m sure if there is anybody whom we have every reason to look upon as one of ourselves it is you.” Yet with the words, frank and friendly as they were, ever so slight a colour had come into the sweet calm face. But before I could make any reply Iris emitted a loud whistle.
“Look at that, Beryl,” she cried derisively. “And then you call him ‘Mr Holt.’”
“The very thing I was going to remark upon,” I said.
“Very well, then,” said Beryl. “Then I won’t do it again.” This time the colour had disappeared, but I could have sworn I caught a momentary look in those soulful eyes that would have justified me, had I been alone, in throwing my hat in the air and hooraying, or executing any other frantic and maniacal manoeuvre indicative of delirious exaltation.
“Then it’s a bargain,” I said.
“Yes,” smiled Beryl.
Now what had given rise to that dear child’s original remark was a certain conversation that had been held that morning over at the kraals at counting-out time.
“Why don’t you make up your mind to stop out here altogether, Holt?” Brian had said, as, the job aforesaid over, we were leaning against a gate watching the flocks streaming away to their respective pasture grounds. “You seem to take to the life, too. Man, you’ll never feel at home in one of those beastly stuffy offices again after this, grinding away at figures. Why don’t you cut loose from it all, and fix up out here? You can do it. Don’t you think he ought, dad?”
“I think he might do worse,” was the answer. “As you say, he seems to take readily enough to it.”
With the words an idea had flashed into my brain, an idea that was as a veritable illumination.
“But before I could start on my own account I should want a precious deal more experience than I’ve got at present,” I said. “There are heaps of things I should have to learn.”
“Yes, you would have a good deal to learn,” said Septimus Matterson, shading a match with his hands as he lit his pipe.
“Look here, Mr Matterson,” I said, coming straight to the point. “Will you teach me – you and Brian? I am not a man of large means, but anything in the way of a premium that you may think fair, I shall be only too happy – er – er – that I am content to leave entirely to you,” I stuttered.