O'Rourke smiled, unruffled. "You don't mean you are sober enough, major--you mean you are not quite too drunk," he said. The others paused in their talk, and laughed. The major opened his eyes a trifle wider and dropped his under jaw. He looked the young stranger up and down. "Well, I hope you are ashamed of yourself," he said, at last. "I am sorry I was rude, sir," explained O'Rourke, "but I hate to be grabbed by the arm that way. I must have a nerve there that connects with my temper." A tipsy smile spread over the ex-consul's face. "Shake hands, my boy," he cried. They shook hands. The others craned their necks to see. "You've come just in time to cheer me up, for I've been lonely since Hemming went into the bush," exclaimed the major. "Hemming! Do you mean Herbert Hemming?" asked O'Rourke, eagerly. "That's who I mean," replied the major, and pushed the dice-box toward him. O'Rourke made nothing better than a pair, and had to pay for thirteen drinks. If you crave a lime-squash of an afternoon, the above method is not always the cheapest way of acquiring it. As the dice-box went the rounds again, and the attention of the company returned to generalities, the newcomer asked more particulars of Hemming's whereabouts. "He started into the bush more than a week ago, to find some new kind of adventure and study the interior, he said," explained the major, "but my own opinion is that he went to see old Tetson in his place up the Plado. Sly boy, Hemming! Whenever we spoke of that crazy Tetson, and his daughter, and his money, he pretended not to take any stock in them. But I'll eat my hat--and it's the only one I have--if he isn't there at this minute, flashing that precious gig-lamp of his at the young lady." O'Rourke had read stories about this eccentric millionaire in the newspapers some years before. "Hemming is safe, wherever he lands," he said. "He's a woman-hater." A look of half-whimsical disgust flashed across the old man's perspiring face. He leaned close to O'Rourke. "Bah--you make me sick," he cried, "with your silly commonplaces. Woman-hater--bah--any fool, any schoolboy can say that. Call a man an ice-riding pinapede, and you'll display the virtue of originality, at least. At first I suspected you of brains." O'Rourke was embarrassed. How could he explain that, in using the term woman-hater, he had meant to suit his conversation to the intellect of his hearer. It was commonplace, without doubt, and meant nothing at all.