place and keep it, even after a good dinner.

The evening had turned out so very differently from what he had
expected that Durnovo was a little off his balance. Things were so
sociable and pleasant in comparison with the habitual loneliness of
his life. The fire crackled so cheerily, the moon shone down on the
river so grandly, the subdued chatter of the boatmen imparted such a
feeling of safety and comfort to the scene, that he gave way to that
impulse of expansiveness which ever lurks in West Indian blood.

"I say," he said, "when you told me that you wanted to make money,
were you in earnest?"

"In the deadliest earnest," replied Jack Meredith, in the half-
mocking tone which he never wholly learnt to lay aside.

"Then I think I can put you in the way of it. Oh, I know it seems a
bit premature--not known you long enough, and all that. But in this
country we don't hold much by the formalities. I like you. I liked
the look of you when you got out of that boat--so damned cool and
self-possessed. You're the right sort, Mr. Meredith."

"Possibly--for some things. For sitting about and smoking first-
class cigars and thinking second-class thoughts I am exactly the
right sort. But for making money, for hard work and steady work, I
am afraid, Mr. Durnovo, that I am distinctly the wrong sort."

"Now you're chaffing again. Do you always chaff?"

"Mostly; it lubricates things, doesn't it?"