"And pray who has a greater right to take care of you, and prescribe what's best for you, and look after you generally? D'you think I want to marry a wife who isn't in the pink of condition?" "I like to look nice for you, dear, but I couldn't take that money from you now of all times." "How do you mean?" "When you are just going off on some desperate expedition into the bush, and want every penny that can be scraped together." Carter laughed. "There you go, wanting to lead me into temptation. Wanting me to take money in my pocket to buy (presumably) kid gloves and fire-escapes in the shops of the bush villages, and spend my nights in local music halls. Fie on you that will one of these days have to turn into a thrifty wife! I shall avoid these temptations. I shall travel as unostentatiously as possible, and so ensure getting through. I shall take with me White-Man's-Trouble only, if the beggar will condescend to go and live on native chop, for the best of all possible reasons that it wouldn't be possible to take a lot of carriers. Can't you see, my dear, that the choice lies between a three-thousand-pound expedition, with carriers, and all the rest of it, and going quietly, and being too obviously poor to rob?" "I suppose there is something in that. Father went quietly." "Of course he did, and so shall I. Some day, if things pan out as I hope, I may march up country at the tail end of a brass band, and do the thing in style; but not to-morrow, thank you. So if you won't take charge of our superfluous £60 and decorate Grand Canary with it, I'm hanged if I don't dash it amongst the factory boys here, and have one flaring jamboree before we part company." "Oh, George, you are good!" "Don't you fret about my goodness, old lady. I'm a pretty bad fellow at the bottom, only I try and keep my worst points out of your sight. Man has to, you know, with the girl he's engaged to. It's only playing the game. Now, you let me go, and I'll just slip across to the _Frau_ and blarney her old Dutch skipper into giving you the best room he's got to fight the cockroaches in." It was on a Thursday that the _Frau Pobst_ steamed away back down the muddy creeks laden with one of the richest cargoes that one single factory had ever collected in West Africa, and on that same day Carter set off into the bush. Kate and Laura were to brave the terrors of the steamer together as far as the Islands, and they found the boat even more unspeakable than they had imagined her from the outrageous descriptions of Captain Image and Mr. Balgarnie. * * * * * Now, as regards the matter of that £60, Carter, to put the matter bluntly, had lied. With the King of Okky doing what he could to keep the country side in a ferment, to go up into the bush even with a strong party, and well provided, was risky. To go with empty pockets, and with no following, seemed very little short of suicide.