He Came With Us, Quite Uninvited By Me, And Never Asked
For Any Pay; I Think He Only Wanted To See The Fun, And Drop In For
A Fight If There Was One Going On, And To Pick Up The Pieces
Generally.
He was evidently a man of some importance from the way
the others treated him; and moreover he had a splendid gun, with a
gorilla skin sheath for its lock, and ornamented all over its stock
with brass nails.
His costume consisted of a small piece of dirty
rag round his loins; and whenever we were going through dense
undergrowth, or wading a swamp, he wore that filament tucked up
scandalously short. Whenever we were sitting down in the forest
having one of our nondescript meals, he always sat next to me and
appropriated the tin. Then he would fill his pipe, and turning to
me with the easy grace of aristocracy, would say what may be
translated as "My dear Princess, could you favour me with a
lucifer?"
I used to say, "My dear Duke, charmed, I'm sure," and give him one
ready lit.
I dared not trust him with the box whole, having a personal
conviction that he would have kept it. I asked him what he would do
suppose I was not there with a box of lucifers; and he produced a
bush-cow's horn with a neat wood lid tied on with tie tie, and from
out of it he produced a flint and steel and demonstrated.
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