reasonable faith in their own integrity make up their minds to see
opprobrium through. Fate stepped hard on our arm of the balance.

If built-over Mombasa is a small place, so is Africa. So is the world.
Striding down the hill from the other hotel, the rival one, the Royal,
came a man so well known in so many lands that they talk of naming a
tenth of a continent after him--the mightiest hunter since Nimrod, and
very likely mightier than he; surely more looked-up to and
respected--a little, wiry-looking, freckled, wizened man whose beard
had once been red, who walked with a decided limp and blinked genially
from under the brim of a very neat khaki helmet.

"Why, bless my soul if it isn't Fred Oakes!" he exclaimed, in a
squeaky, worn-out voice that is as well known as his face, and
quickened his pace down-hill.

"Courtney!" said Fred. "There's only one man I'd rather meet!"

The little man laughed. "Oh, you and your Montdidier are still
inseparable, I suppose! How are you, Fred? I'm glad to see you. Who
are your friends?"

At that minute out came the collector from his office--stood on the
step, and stared. Fred introduced us to Courtney, and I experienced
the thrill of shaking hands with the man accounts of whose exploits had
fired my schoolboy imagination and made stay-at-home life forever after
an impossibility.

"I missed the steamer, Fred. Not another for a week. Going down now
to see about a passage to Somaliland. I suppose you'll be at the club