"If he'd been white he'd have been king of South America long
ago," said Carlyle emphatically. "When it comes to intelligence
he makes Booker T. Washington look like a moron. He's got the
guile of every race and nationality whose blood is in his veins,
and that's half a dozen or I'm a liar. He worships me because I'm
the only man in the world who can play better ragtime than he
can. We used to sit together on the wharfs down on the New York
water-front, he with a bassoon and me with an oboe, and we'd
blend minor keys in African harmonics a thousand years old until
the rats would crawl up the posts and sit round groaning and
squeaking like dogs will in front of a phonograph."

Ardita roared.

"How you can tell 'em!"

Carlyle grinned.

"I swear that's the gos---"

"What you going to do when you get to Callao?" she interrupted.

"Take ship for India. I want to be a rajah. I mean it. My idea is
to go up into Afghanistan somewhere, buy up a palace and a
reputation, and then after about five years appear in England
with a foreign accent and a mysterious past. But India first. Do
you know, they say that all the gold in the world drifts very
gradually back to India. Something fascinating about that to me.
And I want leisure to read--an immense amount."