"That will do," said Mackenzie. "I was dragged up at the workhouse school till I was twelve. Then I ran away and sold papers in the streets, and anything else that I could pick up a few coppers by--except steal. I never did that. I always made up my mind I'd be a big man some day, and--I'm glad I didn't steal." "I didn't either, you know," said Jim, "although I'm not a big man, and never shall be." "Ah, that's where the likes of me scores. You've no call to ambition. You have everything you can want provided for you." "There have been one or two big men born as I was," said Jim. "But please go on with your story. When did you go on your first journey?" "When I was sixteen. I looked much older. I shipped before the mast and went out to Australia, and home round Cape Horn. By Jove, I shan't forget that. The devil was in the wind. We were five months coming home, and nearly starved to death, and worked till we were as thin as hungry cats. Then I shipped with the Boyle-Geering expedition--you know--North Pole, and three years trying to get there. Then I tried a change of climate and went to Central Africa with Freke. I was his servant, got his bath, shaved him, brushed his clothes--he was always a bit of a dandy, Freke, and lived like a gentleman, though I don't believe he was any better than I was when he started; but he could fight too, and there wasn't his equal with niggers. We had trouble that trip, and the men who went out with him were a rotten lot. They'd found the money, or he wouldn't have taken them. He knew a man when he saw one. When we came home I was second in command. "It was easy after that. I led that expedition through Uganda when I was only twenty-five; and the rest--well, the rest I dare say you know." "Yes, I know," said Jim. "You've done a lot." "Not so bad, eh, for a workhouse brat?" "Not so bad for anybody." "I'm up top now. I used to envy lots of people. Now most people envy me." Jim was silent. Mackenzie turned to him. "I suppose you've had a pretty easy time travelling," he said. There was a suspicion of a sneer on his long thin lips. "Pretty easy," said Jim. "Ah! Your sort of travelling is rather different from mine. If you had been roughing it in Tibet for the last two years you would be pretty glad to be getting back." "I'm glad to be getting back as it is."