"Yes, England--London. I've had ten years knocking about the world--China, India, Australia, and all round this forsaken continent; and the sum total of what I've got to show for it is the fever and a couple of knife scars in my back--patriots again, one Hindu, one Peruvian. So I think I had better go home and begin afresh--if I can." And he gave a bitter little laugh. The American glanced sharply at the tall, thin figure and haggard face. When they had started out that morning to drive the saviours of their country out of the spirit stores they were looting, Grierson had struck him as a keen youngster with a rather infectious laugh, and his appreciation had been increased by the way in which the other had dropped a running insurgent at four hundred yards' range; now, however, the captain found himself wondering whether, after all, it was not too late for his companion to talk of beginning life afresh. At dinner that night he expressed his doubts to the Consul, who shook his head. "Locke, the man they killed to-day, told me young Grierson had been through a pretty rough time, touched rock bottom. He was going into the British Army, but had to throw it up, and went out to the Orient for some Company which failed soon after, leaving him stranded. Since then everything he had been in has turned out wrong; and now this has gone.... Queer how some men do get the cards dealt them that way.... He's clever, writes very well, and might have done something at it. Locke's death will be an ugly blow to him." Being a kindly man and none too successful himself, he sighed in sympathy, then mixed another whisky and soda, and passed on to official matters. A little later Captain Harben harked back to the former question. "He's got plenty of pluck. He was all there when it came to a fight. I like him." "So do I," the other answered, "only I guess pluck of that sort won't help him much in England, and you know, or at least I know, that a fellow who's knocked about a lot doesn't suit civilisation, or civilisation doesn't suit him--put it which way you like, the result is the same. His nerves go under, somehow, and it ends so," nodding towards the whisky bottle. Meanwhile Grierson was sitting on the verandah of his dead employer's house staring out into the night, and trying to make plans for the future. "Whatever happens, I don't mean to starve again," he muttered. PEOPLE OF POSITION CHAPTER I