blast them, took the rest! They accused me of crimes--me, Georges
Coutlass!--and imposed fines calculated carefully to skin me of all I
had! Roup and rotten livers! but I will knock them head-over-halleluja
one fine day! Not for nothing shall they flim-flam Georges Coutlass!
Which of you gentlemen is the lord?"

We bought him another drink, and watched it disappear with one
uninterrupted gurgle down its appointed course.

"What did you do next?" Fred asked him before be had recovered breath
enough to question us. "I suppose the Germans had you at a loose end?"

"Do you think that? Sacred history of hell! It takes more than a
lousy military German to get Georges Coutlass at a loose end! They
must get me dead before that can happen! And then, by Blitzen, as
those devils say, a dead Georges Coutlass will be better than a
thousand dead Germans! In hell I will use them to clean my boots on!
At a loose end, was I? I met this bloody rogue Hassan--the fat
blackguard who told me you have come to Zanzibar for fish--and made an
agreement with him to look for Tippoo Tib's buried ivory. Yes, sir! I
showed him papers. He thought they were money drafts. He thought me a
man of means whom he could bleed. I had guns and ammunition, he none.
He pretended to know where some of Tippoo Tib's ivory is buried."

"Some of it, eh?" said Fred.

"Some of it, d'you say?" said I.

"Some of it, yes. A million tusks. Some say two million! Some say
three! Thunder!--you take a hundred good tusks and bury them; you'll