"Oh, I beg your pardon--I'd forgotten your objection to roses." Mr. Ricketts, who was fortunately still in London, accepted John's invitation to come and see him at Church Row on business. He was a lantern-jawed man with a tremendous capacity for cocktails, a sinewy neck, and a sentimental affection for his native suburb. At the same time, he would not hear a word against British Honduras. "I reckon our regatta at Belize is the prettiest little regatta in the world." "But the future of logwood and mahogany?" John insisted. "Great," the visitor assured him. "Why don't _you_ come out to us? You'd lose a lot of weight if you worked for a few months up the Zucara river. Here's a photograph of some of our boys loading logwood." "They look very hot," said John, politely. "They are very hot," said Mr. Ricketts. "You can't expect to grow logwood in Iceland." "No, of course not. I understand that." In the end it was decided that John should invest L2000 in the logwood and mahogany business and that sometime in February Hugh should be ready to sail with Mr. Ricketts to Central America. "Of course he'll want to learn something about the conditions of the trade at first. Yes, I reckon your brother will stay in Belize at first," said the planter, scratching his throat so significantly that John made haste to fill up his glass, thinking to himself that, if the cocktails at the Belize Yacht Club were as good as Mr. Ricketts boasted, Hugh would be unlikely ever to see much more of mahogany than he saw of it at present cut and rounded and polished to the shape of a solid dining-room table. However, the more attractive Belize, the less attractive England. "I think you told me this was your first visit home in fifteen years?" he asked. "That's right. Fifteen years in B.H." "B.H.?" repeated the new speculator, nervously. "British Honduras." "Oh, I beg your pardon. The initials associated themselves in my mind for the moment with another place. B.H. you call it. Very appropriate I should think. I suppose you found many changes in Balham on your return?" "Wouldn't have known it again," said Mr. Ricketts. "For one thing they'd changed all the lamp-posts along our road. That's the kind of thing to teach a man he's growing old." Perhaps Hugh wouldn't recognize Hampstead after fifteen years, John thought, gleefully; he might even pass his nearest relations in the street without a salute when like a Rip van Winkle of the tropics he returned to his native country after fifteen years. "I suppose the usual outfit for hot climates will be necessary?" Mr. Ricketts nodded; and John began to envisage himself equipping Hugh from the Army and Navy Stores. "I always think there is something extraordinarily romantic about a tropical outfit," he ventured. "It's extraordinarily expensive," said Mr. Ricketts. "But everything's going up. And mahogany's going up when I get back to B.H., or my name isn't Sydney Ricketts."