"What, Welsh?" said Carter politely. "I should never have guessed it."
"I am," said Captain Image with sturdy truth, "and many times, look you, I am proud of it. Which reminds me that little red-bearded Kettle that you employed to run your launch and the mine is Welsh also. I don't want to go against a fellow-countryman who's down on his luck, but I saw him with my own eyes give old Kallee an illustrated methody tract on bigamy when he was on the _M'poso_, and if His Portliness finds anyone kind enough to translate it for him, there'll be the devil to pay. Kallee's black, but he's a king, and he's not the kind to let any man tamper with his domestic happiness. Now about Slade----"
"We'll drop Slade. He's Miss O'Neill's man. If Miss O'Neill chooses to amuse herself by gunning for me, that's her concern. But I don't shoot back."
Captain Image shook his head sadly. "Well, me lad, if you won't lift a hand to help yourself, I don't see there's anything more to be said." He put his pipe in his pocket, stood up and prepared to go. "Oh, by the way, did anyone tell you about old Swizzle-Stick Smith?"
"Lord bless you, no, me lad. Very much the reverse. Look here, what was your idea of that man?"
"What was he before he became the disreputable old palm oil ruffian you first knew at Malla-Nulla?"
"Oh, I suppose he was less disreputable once. He'd let himself drift, that's all. One does get into frightfully slack ways in those lonely factories."
"Did he strike you as the usual type of man a factory agent's made of?"
"Gentleman, wasn't he, or had been once? Always used to hitch up the knees of his pyjamas when he sat down; spoke well; knew Latin; could swear round any man on the Coast when he was that side out; and had a pleasant way of making you feel you were dirt when the mood took him that way?"
Carter laughed. "He had some characteristic little ways."
"Ever strike you he'd been a soldier once?"
"Well, me lad, when I was tied up by that Edmondson factory, a boat swung up to my ladder and a military party stepped out. Quite the swell, I can tell you: nobby white helmet, hair cut with scissors, smart gray mustache, gray imperial bristling underneath it, clean-shaved chin, white drill coat with concertina pockets, white drill pants with a crease down the shin, latest thing in pipe-clayed shoes. If it hadn't been for the old trick with the eye-glass and the black ribbon, I take my dick I shouldn't have known him.