"
"Yes, Hans," I said, "I did well to take you and you are clever, for
had it not been for you, we should now be cooked and eaten in Pongo-
land. I thank you for your help, old friend. But, Hans, another time
please sew up the holes in your waistcoat pocket. Four caps wasn't
much, Hans."
"No, Baas, but it was enough; as they were all good ones. If there had
been forty you could not have done much more. Oh! your reverend father
knew all that" (my departed parent had become a kind of patron saint
to Hans) "and did not wish this poor old Hottentot to have more to
carry than was needed. He knew you wouldn't miss, Baas, and that there
were only one god, one devil, and one man waiting to be killed."
I laughed, for Hans's way of putting things was certainly original,
and having got on my coat, went to see Stephen. At the door of the
tent I met Brother John, whose shoulder was dreadfully sore from the
rubbing of the orchid stretcher, as were his hands with paddling, but
who otherwise was well enough and of course supremely happy.
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