Renson--well, Renson was in some ways "Mac's" exact antithesis and in some his twin brother. He was one of those youths who believe in spending prodigally and in all possible haste what little nature has given them. Wherefore, though he was younger than "Mac" appeared to be, he already looked older than "Mac" was. In Zone parlance "he had already laid a good share of the road to Hell behind him." Yet such a cheery, likable chap was Renson, so large-hearted and unassuming--that was just why you felt an itching to seize him by the collar of his olive-drab shirt and shake him till his teeth rattled for tossing himself so wantonly to the infernal bow-wows. Renson's "bush" troubles were legion. Not only were there the seducing brown "Spigoty" women out in the wilderness to help him on his descending trail, but when and wherever fire-water of whatever nationality or degree of voltage showed its neck--and it is to be found even in "the bush"--there was Renson sure to give battle--and fall. "It's no use bein' a man unless you're a hell of a man," was Renson's "influenced" philosophy. How different this was from his native good sense when the influence was turned off was demonstrated when he returned from cautiously reconnoitering a cottage far back in the wilds one dark night and reported as his reason for postponing the enumerating: "If you'd butt in on one o' them Martinique booze festivals they'd crown you with a bottle." Already one or two enumerators had gone back to private life--by request. Particularly sad was the case of our dainty, blue-blooded Panamanian. As with many Panamanians, and not a few of the self-exalted elsewhere, he was more burdened with blue corpuscles than with gray matter. At any rate--