"Oh, Smith," the King would say, "I fit," and thereafter there would be truce till the houseboy brought the ingredients, and Mr. Smith with his far-famed skill compounded them, and the pink cocktails went their appointed journey to perform their accustomed work. After which the African would once more repeat his unwearied demand.
From the rising of the King from his mat, to the hour of the midday meal, this demand and reply went on, and Swizzle-Stick Smith parried it with unruffled serenity. But an open rupture very nearly came at the meal time. As a king, the visitor was invited to sit at meat with the white men in their mess-room. He said little during the meal, but he appraised Carter's head so persistently with his eyes that that irritated young man, with the pride of race bubbling within him, would have openly resented the performance if he had not given a promise to Mr. Smith on this very point only a short half-hour before.
Such a state of things could not last long without bringing about an open breach, and Swizzle-Stick Smith, with his vast experience, saw this earlier than anybody, and made his arrangements accordingly.
He tried hard to write a letter, but his pen was not in the mood for intelligent calligraphy. So he had to fall back on verbal instructions and a verbal message.
"Mr. Assistant," he said, when at last he put down his knife and fork, and the houseboy handed him his pipe and a match, "Mr. Assistant, I intended to make you a bearer of dispatches, but the gout's got into my confounded fingers this morning, and I doubt if even Slade could read my writing. So we'll just have to do the thing informally. We must have some more of that spot-white-on-blue cloth, and you must post off to the Smooth River factory and bring it back with you. It seems to be in heavy demand just now, though why, I can't imagine. I've been on the Coast twenty-five years now, and I can no more foretell the run of native fashions than I could the day I landed. But there it is, and though I'm sure Slade won't want to part, you must just make him. Say we'll pay him back in salt. He's sure to be short of salt. I never yet knew Slade to indent for half as many bags of salt as his trade required. You needn't hurry. If you're back here in three days' time that will be quite soon enough. You can take a hammock, of course."