"That's the term. Some of it was freehold though. Luckily. We got
along very well in the old days.--But there's no ostriches on
that farm now." He had a diamond mine in his head, just at the
moment, but he stopped and left a little to the girl's
imagination. Besides which it had occurred to him with a kind of
shock that he was lying.

"What became of the ostriches?"

"We sold 'em off, when we parted with the farm. Do you mind if I
have another cigarette? That was when I was quite a little chap,
you know, that we had this ostrich farm."

"Did you have Blacks and Boers about you?"

"Lots," said Mr. Hoopdriver, striking a match on his instep and
beginning to feel hot at the new responsibility he had brought
upon himself.

"How interesting! Do you know, I've never been out of England
except to Paris and Mentone and Switzerland."

"One gets tired of travelling (puff) after a bit, of course."

"You must tell me about your farm in South Africa. It always
stimulates my imagination to think of these places. I can fancy
all the tall ostriches being driven out by a black herd--to
graze, I suppose. How do ostriches feed?"