"Not a thing. I've been living on plantains and dried elephant-meat
for the last fortnight."

"Doesn't sound nourishing. Well, we are pretty well provided, so
perhaps you will give me the pleasure of your company to dinner?
Come as you are: no ceremony. I think I will wash though. It is
as well to keep up these old customs."

With a pleasant smile he went towards the tent which had just been
erected. Joseph was very busy, and his admonishing voice was heard
at times.

"Here, Johnny, hammer in that peg. Now, old cups and saucers, stop
that grinning and fetch me some water. None of your frogs and
creepy crawly thing this time, my blonde beauty, but clean water,
comprenny?"

With these and similar lightsome turns of speech was Joseph in the
habit of keeping his men up to the mark. The method was eminently
successful. His coloured compeers crowded round him "all of a
grin," as he himself described it, and eager to do his slightest
behest. From the throne to the back-kitchen the secret of success
is the art of managing men--and women.



CHAPTER VII. THE SECRET OF THE SIMIACINE