'Well, at least find out all you can about him,' said Peter, as Hopwood appeared with coffee, and Ross and Toffy joined them and sat down under the paraiso trees. There had been some heavy work on the estancia that morning, followed by a lazy afternoon. 'Can you tell me, Purvis,' said Toffy, breaking off an earnest conversation with Ross, 'why there should be such an enormous difficulty about getting a boiled shirt to wear? I suppose it really does cleanse one's linen to bang it with a stone in the river, but the appearance of greyness makes one doubtful.' 'You and Peter are both so beastly civilized!' said Ross, in a flannel shirt with baggy breeches and long boots. 'You don't even like killing cattle, and the way Hopwood polishes your boots makes them look much more fitted for St. James's Street than for the camp.' 'You ought to make friends with Juan Lara's wife,' said Purvis. 'She often washes Dick's little things for him, and does it very nicely.' 'I believe that Lara, on purely economical grounds, wears our shirts a week or two before he hands them over to his wife to wash,' said Ross, laughing. 'Ross,' said Peter, 'employs the gaucho's plan, and wears three shirts, and when the top one gets dirty he discloses the next one to view.' 'Remember, little man,' said Ross, stretching out a huge foot towards Peter's recumbent figure on the deck-chair, 'I 'm a head and shoulders taller than you are.' 'I 'm sure Mr. Ogilvie's remark was only in fun,' interposed Purvis. He rose and went to summon his boy to come and have coffee, and the three men left behind under the trees watched him disappearing into the house. 'If it were a matter of real necessity,' said Ross, 'I believe I could endure the loss of Purvis; he becomes a bore, and tears and tabloids combined are really very depressing.' 'Poor beast!' said Toffy charitably. 'I can't make out,' said Ross, 'what the trouble is at present on his estancia. I have only heard some native gossip, and I don't know what it is all about; but there seems to be an idea that Purvis is lying on the top of a mine which may "go off sudden."' 'I believe,' began Peter, 'that Purvis is going to be of use, as Sir John thought he might be. There is a very odd tale he was telling me just now.' He broke off suddenly as Purvis reappeared in his usual quiet, shadowy way. He brought a small saddle-bag with him when he travelled, which seemed to be filled for the most part with papers. His dark clothes were always neatly brushed and folded by himself, and he generally spent his days riding to and fro between the house and the nearest telegraph-office. 'You should take a holiday while you are here,' said Toffy, seeing Purvis sitting down immediately to write one of his interminable telegrams. 'It would do you good.' 'It's my nerves,' said Purvis hopelessly. Ross laughed and said, 'If I lived on weak tea and tabloids as you do, Purvis, I should be in my grave in ten days.'