could, he drank all he could; then he departed from the table, and took
up a remote and inaccessible position in the corner of the smoking-room.
He was engaged in growing the beard he customarily wore in the jungle--a
most fierce outstanding Mohammedan-looking beard that terrified the
intrusive into submission. And yet Bwana C. possesses the kindest blue
eyes in the world, full of quiet patience, great understanding, and
infinite gentleness. His manner was abrupt and uncompromising, but he
would do anything in the world for one who stood in need of him. From
women he fled; yet Billy won him with infinite patience, and in the
event they became the closest of friends. Withal he possessed a pair of
the most powerful shoulders I have ever seen on a man of his frame; and
in the depths of his mild blue eyes flickered a flame of resolution that
I could well imagine flaring up to something formidable. Slow to make
friends, but staunch and loyal; gentle and forbearing, but fierce and
implacable in action; at once loved and most terribly feared; shy as a
wild animal, but straightforward and undeviating in his human relations;
most remarkably quiet and unassuming, but with tremendous vital force in
his deep eyes and forward-thrust jaw; informed with the widest and most
understanding humanity, but unforgiving of evildoers; and with the most
direct and absolute courage, Bwana C. was to me the most interesting man
I met in Africa, and became the best of my friends.

The only other man at our table happened to be, for our sins, the young
Englishman mentioned as throwing the first coin to the old woman on the
pier at Marseilles. We will call him Brown, and, because he represents a
type, he is worth looking upon for a moment.

He was of the super-enthusiastic sort; bubbling over with vitality, in
and out of everything; bounding up at odd and languid moments. To an
extraordinary extent he was afflicted with the spiritual blindness of