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| title
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|---|---|---|---|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Tell your old King, said the Englishman contemptuously,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If you fight when we come down to the factory, said Kwaka,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I will see to it that you are crucified separately. I should like to take the woman who lives here into my own harem, but the King has bespoken her already."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You, said Carter savagely,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That is the glare of Gehenna, said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "he added to himself,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Look here, my dear, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Two, said the girl, and shuddered,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Which I think very improper of him. I don't believe in girls being mixed up in business matters, at any rate in West Africa, and I am sure K. O'Neill would be frightfully down on it--what are you laughing at? Laura, tell me one-time what you are sniggering about in that ridiculous way. Oh, I see. You think I have never seen Mr. K. and am talking through my hat. Well, my dear, if you had read fifty times over every letter that K. has written to Malla-Nulla factory during the last eighteen months, you would know that man and his likes and his dislikes, and his ambitions, and his cranks just about as accurately as I do. Anyway, I repeat, he'd hate to have you here in charge."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just remember that I don't agree with you one bit, Mr. Carter."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Very well, Miss Slade, you can jolly well do the other thing. But take charge here I shall, and go to the Islands you must. There's a B. and A. boat due to call at Monk River the day but one after to-morrow. I'll send for our surf boat, and we'll take you there in style. Won't you have a ripping time of it at Las Palmas and up in the Monte! I wonder what the new hotel's like up there. And I say, Laura, go down to that farm at the bottom of the Caldera, and I bet you a new hat it takes you half an hour longer than my record time to get up again as far as Atalaya--Hullo, what's the matter now?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You are making things rather hard for me. I'd go away from this hateful Coast if I could, but we simply can't afford it, and there you have the bare fact."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But I thought----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, yes, of course you did, that father was a sort of local millionaire. Well, he isn't. He did once have private means, but that I think was before I was born, and only the reputation of them remains now. He's made big commissions on the factory's trading, I know, but he's invested badly, and I think he's been robbed. Probably, too, I've been extravagant."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Rubbish."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, anyway, the money's gone, and the brutal truth is I haven't a sovereign in the world."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good Lord! You ought not to have been left here like that. It was beastly careless of Slade."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He never thought of it. And if he had, he couldn't have done anything. His equipment of course came from about the factory, but as regards money, he went away without a pound in his pocket. There aren't shops that one can spend money in to be found up in the bush."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's disgustingly awkward, said Carter frowning."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Of course every penny that I have in the world would be as much yours as it ever had been mine, but the fact is, my dear, I've paid it all away as it came. You see, in a way I was a sort of bad egg before I got a billet out here on the Coast, where, I suppose, if you come to look at it, there are small opportunities of roystering. Besides, with Mr. Smith always before one as an example of what not to be, it doesn't take very much resolution to keep straight. Anyway, in ancient days I ran up all the debts I could get tick for, and I landed in the poor old Pater for a lot more than a younger son's share. Well, what with selling curios through that old blackguard Balgarnie on the _M'poso_ (who I know robs me of half the proceeds), and commission on our turnover at Malla-Nulla, which has increased a lot since I've been there (till of course this row cropped up), and my small bit of regular screw, altogether I've made a very decent income, and I've taken a bit of pride in paying off the old debts with ten per cent. of interest added. I knew that extra ten per cent. would tickle some of them frightfully. It was just that chunk of interest that cleaned me out down to the bone, and I chucked it in because I thought one could not possibly want hard cash down on the Coast here. What idiots men are to let themselves run short of money! However, I shall have another quarter's screw due in a couple of months' time and in the meanwhile you must go to the Islands on tick."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're a dear good boy, but it can't be done. I shall stay on here and make the best of things."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You will do nothing of the kind, young woman. You will travel on a Madeira chair in a palatial surf boat as far as Monk River as we just now arranged, and then I shall walk on board the B. and A. boat with you, and explain to the purser who you are, and everything will be as right as ninepence."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You make things difficult for me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not a bit of it. I'm the man that's going to shoulder the difficulties."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, you didn't know it. But if you asked a favor for my father's daughter from the purser of the _Secondee_--she's the boat that's due--you would get an unkind answer. We're in debt all round, and I'm afraid he didn't behave very well to either the purser or the captain of the _Secondee_. Now, please do not press me any more. I stay here at Smooth River factory."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then I stay, too. The da Silvas will put me up, and if they object, I'll turn them out into the bush and live in their house alone. Malla-Nulla must look after itself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What will Mr. K. say to that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He will approve. K.'s a tough nut in business matters, but he's a man all through."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is he? said the girl with a queer smile."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't agree with you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "One may not at the moment like the way he hustles one along in his letters, said Carter stoutly,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The beggars will rush those barricades, said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I may want it for myself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't be melodramatic. Now run into the mess-room, there's a good girl, and get down those two Winchesters, and load up the magazines. I'm going down to help the boys."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wish I'd a scatter-gun, he said."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I used to be a nailer at rabbits and the occasional grouse at home. However, it won't do to miss here, although the tool is new. He threw up the weapon to his shoulder, and shot as a game shot shoots, with head erect and both eyes staring wide at a leather charm-case on the broad black chest which he picked as his object. He did not know how to squint along the barrel. Then he pressed home the trigger, and had the thrill of knowing that he had shot his first man.... He warmed to the work after that, and fired on and on with deadly speed and accuracy, till the heated barrels of the repeaters burned Laura Slade's hands as she charged the magazines beneath them. From somewhere in the lower part of the factory came White-Man's-Trouble, and when in answer to the fusillade, showers of pot-leg began to rustle over the veranda and scream through the roof, that valiant person presently dragged out bedding to form a breastwork. But although Carter kicked him till his foot ached the Krooboy would not show his own head over it sufficiently to use a gun for the mutual defence. He stuck to it stolidly that he was a"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hear that? croaked Carter."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's a cannon, and a brass one as you can tell by the ring. It's probably one of those old brass guns that the Portuguese used to cast for the natives two hundred years ago. One of my curiosity dealers promised me fifty golden sovereigns for a genuine specimen. If I don't spot that gun and pick off the men who are serving it, they'll jug us for a certainty. But they've got the blessed thing so jolly well hidden among the bush! Well, I'm going to ease up on my own shooting and watch for the next flash. Get me a drink, you plucky darling, will you, or else my throat will crack in two. Bring a chattie of water; that's what I want. The heat of this night has been about the worst I have known on the Coast."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It is too hot to last, said the girl."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm afraid even the water in the chattie will be as warm as tea."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, my sweetheart, said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, you never did. I don't see why you should."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Stick your head lower down. That thing that said 'whisp-whisp!' was a rifle-bullet. They've got a blooming marksman down there, and I can't have you picked off. And don't talk rubbish. You know you're jolly going to marry me as soon as ever we can afford it, if ever we get out of this, which isn't likely. He clapped an arm snugly round her, and _w-o-s-h_ came a load of pot-leg into the other side of the bedding which protected them."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Got any silly objections to make to that?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Have you thought over what it means, George? You know I'm not white."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Bosh! Anyway you're white enough for me. Let go the chattie. And as I said before, Here's luck. Ugh! African river water, half mud, half essence of nigger from higher up. Moreover, as you remarked, hot as tea. Bang! there goes that infernal cannon again, and I've been gossiping with you--proposing, I mean--and haven't seen the flash. Plunked a shot into one of the palm oil puncheons in the store below, by the sound of it. Hullo, here comes the wind. Now, somebody will have his hair combed."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Got him--Laura, for the Lord's sake keep down in shelter, or they'll pick you off to a certainty. Trouble, you hound, roll up those pillows and blankets underneath you into a hard wad, and stuff them into that gap at the corner there----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Isn't there a splendid chill after that awful heat? the girl said."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wrap up, George, or you'll have fever. Here's your coat."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Look out, Carter shouted."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hold on all with those blankets. Here comes more tornado."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm hanged if I let those beggars kill us, Carter bawled out during one of the lulls."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "In this splendid air life's too gorgeous."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I shall stick Mr. K. for a rise in screw if we get through this,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If I hadn't made a promise, said the girl,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I could tell you something about your Mr. K. that would startle you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're a tantalizing baggage, and I've a good mind to pick you up and shake it out of you. Gad! Here they come. Now, I'll shoot, and you get a box of matches and light those bombs for White-Man's-Trouble to throw."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Bombs! Do you mean the cigarette-tins?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes. You'd a big brazing-lamp in the factory. Remember it? Well, you had. And that meant benzoline, I guessed. I found a drum full of it, anyway, and I've loaded up those tins with benzoline. It'll burn like winking in this sun, and the niggers'll never see the flame. Only thing to take care of, is not to set light to the factory. Now, do you understand?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, dear."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And d'you savvy, Trouble?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Savvy plenty. Oh, Carter, I burn my leg plenty-too-much with dem damhot lamp once on steamah. No can see flame when sun lib for shine. I fit for serve as stand-by-at-crane boy once, sar, on steamah."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, Mr. Engineer, throw straight and don't get hoist by your own petard. By the living Jink we're in for it now. Throw, Trouble, for all you're worth, right into the blue of them."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Behold, I put ju-ju on you blighters,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My Christian Aunt! said Carter up on the factory veranda,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hullo, old lady, what's the row with you? You're not hit? Good God, don't tell me you're hit. What a careless hound I am to let you get out of cover. I could have sworn there wasn't a shot being fired. What a miserably incompetent brute I am to get rattled and not see after you better."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, George, I'm not hit. I almost wish I were. That would be fairer."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What's the matter, then?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I suppose I must feel very much as you do about the matter, only more so. You see I lit the matches for each bomb Trouble held out to me. It was I who am really responsible----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, look here. I'm not going to have you presuming on being my sweetheart. I know you'd like to have the credit of routing the enemy, but you're not going to have it. I want all the kudos I can get in that line for business purposes myself. I'm going to point out in my report to Mr. K. that it was my brilliant genius alone that rootled out that drum of benzoline, and put it to a new and unpleasant use, and that any idea of refusing me the ten-pound a year rise in screw that I ask as a reward would be bang against all O'Neill and Craven's most cherished traditions of fairness. So just you remember that, Miss Slade, and don't go off and brag about doing one single thing that wasn't ordered by your superior officer in this Service (as old Swizzle-Stick Smith would say), and that's me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're a dear, good boy."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am, said Carter cheerfully."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm rather surprised people don't see it oftener. You're the first person in Africa who's made the discovery so far. Now I can't have you eating the bread of idleness out here any longer. Indoors you go, and tidy up. He took her by the arm and led her gently to the living room."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hasn't that breeze made hay of the place? Sorry the houseboys have left this desirable situation without warning, and I can't lend you White-Man's-Trouble just now. So I want you to wade in, if you please, my dear, and show me what an extremely domesticated person the future Mrs. G. Carter can be when she tries. 'We wish to make a point,' said Mr. K. in one of his typewritten letters, 'of having all our factories neat and comfortable.'"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If I were to marry you, I wonder what K. would say."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say nothing. We should absolutely draw the line at interference there, eh? But in the meanwhile there is no harm in following out the gentleman's advice, which is invariably sound, on the other points."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When you see Mr. K. I'm very much afraid you'll change your mind about me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't you be jealous of K., sweetheart. Mine's only a business admiration in that direction."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "At present, she persisted."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Wait till you meet."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When we meet, I shall say, 'Sir, this very lovely and desirable young person here is my wife,' and then we shall go on to commercial topics. There's nothing romantic about the boss. If you'd studied the Epistles of K. to the Coasters as closely as I have, you'd know that off by heart."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I love you, she said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If K. comes along before the parson, well and good, you shall have your own way of it. But if a missionary of the right complexion (if there is such a thing down here) casts up at this factory, there'll be a wedding cake put on the festive board, Miss Slade, and you'll be the bride that'll cut it. Don't you try and wriggle out of your solemn promises with me. Hullo, what's that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Thunder. Is the tornado coming again?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, listen. It isn't thunder. It's people thumping monkey-skin drums. I've made dozens of those tuneful instruments for the curiosity dealers at home, so I know the note. Well, you get on with your dusting, there's a nice girl, and I'll go out and have a cigarette."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You are going--to----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What, clean up the mess outside? No, we'll leave that for the present. Now, don't be scared, there's a sweetheart. But, to tell the truth, those drums interest me. The natives signal through the bush with them, you know, in a sort of dot-dash-dot style; and so far their local Morse alphabet has been a bit beyond me. Perhaps White-Man's-Trouble may be able to decipher it. Now, don't you try and shirk that dusting one moment longer."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Savvy plenty, said White-Man's-Trouble gloomily."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dem Okky-man's drums."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, I didn't suppose it was a Chinaman's, you patent idiot. You fit for understand dem tune?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Savvy plenty. Dem tune say Okky-men fit for make custom."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That means 'ceremony,' I suppose. Now, what sort of a ceremony will suit the occasion? Dirge of defeat by the ju-ju men, presumably, and then they'll crucify some wretched slave so that his spirit can go into the Beyond and arrange to have the luck changed. I wish Mr. Smith were here, or Slade. No, I'm hanged if I do, though. I've worked this thing off my own bat so far, and I'll see it onto the finish. Dem Okky-men make crucify palaver?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then, by an' by they grow plenty-too-much more brave, an' they come back one-time an' fight some more."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then you bet your woolly whiskers it won't do for us to sit quietly taking the air here. Ju-ju's the correct card to play in this country anyway."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Carter, I no fit for touch ju-ju."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, I am. With thought and care, I believe I should develop into a very good ju-ju practitioner. Besides, the subject fascinates me. No white men seem to know anything very definite about it, above the fact that it is beyond their comprehension, and it would be rather fine, if the unlikely happened, and one chanced to survive, to be known as the one authority on West African magic."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Carter, if you meddle with dem ju-ju palaver you lib for die plenty soon. If you walk in bush, tree fall on you; if you ride in canoe, arrow jump on you; if you chop,[*] dem chop he fill with powdered glass, and presently you lib for die of tear-tear-belly. Oh, Carter, you lib for Coast now one year; I lib for Coast all my life; I savvy plenty; you alle-same damfool."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My dear Trouble, I've admitted already that I know meddling with ju-ju isn't altogether an insurance proposition. Much obliged to you for the fresh warning all the same. But I'm afraid your constitutional nervousness rather clouds that massive brain of yours at times, or you'd see that Smooth River factory and its three occupants are in the devil of a fix just now. You say the Okky-men when they've rubbed up their courage will presently return; and I don't dispute your reading of the omens. If they do come, we can't shoot them off, and that's a certain thing. As I'm sure Mr. Smith would say, it's a case of _Aut ju-ju aut nullus_, and to follow his rather objectionable knack of translating for a man who happened to have been at a different school to his own, that means we've either got to play the ju-ju card or be scuppered. White-Man's-Trouble, you are hereby made conjurer's confederate."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I no fit."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Am I to hurt your feelings with this piece of packing-case lid?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Carter, you look see. There's a nail in him there."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know there's a nail in it. The occasion demands a nail, and I picked the weapon for that reason. Now, then, are you going to obey orders, or will you take a first-class licking?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Carter, I fit for do what you say."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good. You're an excellent boy when you're handled the right way. Now go to the feteesh and bring the biggest coil of that inch lead piping you can stagger under."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Regard, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O thou assistant to the great white ju-ju man. We will place one of these graven images opposite the entrance of each road which comes from the bush into this factory clearing. We'll hoist it up onto a green gin box, so, and give it a bit more height and dignity. And we'll add a necklace of these green cigarette tins, which have already advertised themselves into an ugly notoriety. Then, into this hole you see in the back of each image, we will fit an end of lead piping, and as the holes are tapered, the unions will make themselves good. Then, O helper of dark schemes, we'll pay out the coil, as far as possible in swamp where it will sink out of sight, and bring all the ends into the house here. Any piping that shows, you must throw earth over. Savvy? And the inside ends we'll splay out with this hardwood cone that I've made, till a man can get his mouth well into them and shout down the tube comfortably. I'm sure you catch the idea?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Carter, I plenty-too-much afraid. Presently I lib for die."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not you. If I see any signs of your starting to fade away, I'll whack you into life again with a piece of board with two nails in it. Wherefore, O feared of the uninitiated, buck up, and get a shovel, and cover that lead out of sight where it shows. Afterwards I'll show you the working of that early British contrivance, an office speaking-tube. That is, if we have time for a rehearsal, but by the extra big dot-dashing of those monkey-skin drums just now, it rather looks as if we shall have the next act of this play crowding down on us without much more interval."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you see, she asked,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Which said clump, observed Carter,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Carter, said the Krooboy with simple dignity,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I no bush-boy. I speak English. I learn him on steamah. I work up to position of stand-by-at-crane boy before I lib for come ashore to work at factory. Ah, Carter, I savvy swear-palaver plenty-much-too-good. You fit for hear me?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Not for one instant. I want you to make all your remarks in Kroo, or preferably Okky, if you aren't too rattled to remember any of that fashionable tongue. Here, put your sweet lips to the tube, and just say in the thickest language you can think of 'Get away back to Okky City, you bushmen. If you hesitate, your noses shall drop off, and your great fat lips shall follow, and red ants shall spring up out of the earth to eat them whilst you wait.' Savvy the idea?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Savvy plenty,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let us begone from here, he moaned,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You had better shut up. The Okky men have gone, minutes ago, and I do not think you know what you are saying. Laura, do you hear me?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I said only what you told me. It was to save our lives. And you--you could not understand what I said. It was Okky talk; you surely could not follow it. Why do you look at me like that? George, what is it? She laughed rather wildly, and plucked herself away from him."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, I see. Well, I warned you before that I was black, and now I suppose you believe me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My dear girl, you've gone through more than you can stand, and you've just worn yourself to rags. I never quite knew what hysterics meant before, but I fancy that in about two minutes more you would show me. Now the trouble's over; we've fixed 'em tight this time, and you needn't worry yourself any more. Just you go to your room and lie down and sleep."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sleep! You think I could sleep?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Very well, he said coolly,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You still call me by that name, she said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Of course. Don't be stupid. A man doesn't change towards a girl just because she happened to get a bit excited when she was doing her best to save his life. I'm half sorry now I stopped you, only the myrmidons of my rival, his Majesty of Okky, had run away, and you really were rather working yourself up. He drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And now you will go and turn in, won't you, like a good girl?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll do anything my lord wishes. But you will look after yourself, promise me?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Rather."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Let your boy get you a meal. You've not had a crumb all day, and you must be starving. It was horribly careless of me not to have thought of it before."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That is rather a bright idea. Had anything yourself? No, I see you haven't. Well, we'll sup, Laura, before you're packed off to bed. It's five o'clock in the afternoon, but we'll call it supper. Trouble?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, Carter?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We fit for chop. You kill two tin, one-time."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, Carter, three tin. Me one, Missy two----"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dem Okky cannon,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not it, said Carter."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's all right, Laura. It's a steamer's mail gun. I never heard the roar of a loaded cannon till this morning, but once heard, you can't mistake it for blank cartridge."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Are you sure?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Absolutely. I jumped when the thing went off, but then I suppose we're all a bit fagged. Here, Trouble, you shirker, get dem chop one-time, and then find some limes. We shall have the steamer people ashore in ten minutes, and when they hear the yarn they'll want about five cocktails apiece to congratulate us in. Lord! Laura, but I'd give a tooth and two finger nails to have Mr. K. dropping in on us during the next hour or so to see the fine way we've saved O'Neill and Craven's factory from a total loss. I believe he'd raise my screw with such a jump that you and I might get married out of hand. Let's see, what boat's due? I've hardly got your time-table in my head; one gets rusty at Malla-Nulla."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's the _M'poso_, George. She's straight out from home. Just think, you may really have K. descending on you in half an hour's time."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No such luck. It will be Cappie Image-me-lad, with his green umbrella and his best thirst, and that hearty ruffian Balgarnie, who'll rob every corpse in the clearing if he thinks he can collect one Aggry bead and a good slave dagger. By Gad, I wonder if I can screw some money out of Balgarnie. I sent at least eighty sovereigns' worth of most carefully made curios home with him last time the _M'poso_ tried to roll herself over off our beach at Malla-Nulla."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I think, said the girl,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll just go to my room for a minute."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O vanity, said he."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're going to tidy your hair, and smarten your frock just for the sake of old Cappie Image and the plump Balgarnie. By the way, now that you are an engaged young woman, are you going to let those genial old ruffians take you on their knees and kiss you, just in the old sweet way? Of course, don't mind me if you'd like it so."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Pouf! said Laura,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I think I'll wash off some of the battle scars myself, said Carter."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "One looks a bit melodramatic in this filthy, smeary mess. Not to mention uncomfortable. I suppose, by the way, somebody will turn up to pay a polite call. They'll judge that something's wrong when they see that all the factory boats and canoes have been cleared out of the creek."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Kate! I knew you'd come, and ran forward and shook the passenger by the hand."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There, you see, George, she said over her shoulder,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hullo, Carter, me lad! said Captain Image."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Glad to see you looking so fit. You're a fine advertisement for those pills of mine, and I'm sure you're glad now you kept away from old Swizzle-Stick Smith's nostrums. You seem to have been having a bit of a scrap round the factory here. However, we will hear about that, and have your tally of the cargo you want to ship from here and Malla-Nulla afterwards. But for the present I want to introduce my passenger and your boss, Miss O'Neill."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mr. K. O'Neill's sister?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Miss Kate O'Neill, who is head of O'Neill and Craven."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Laura calls you George, I notice,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, of course she would. We are engaged, you know."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Miss Slade and I are engaged. We are to be married as soon as we can afford it. When you look round, and see how we've saved the factory from the Okky-men, we hope you'll raise my salary."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, I think I can promise to do that, said Kate O'Neill."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I had my eyes open when I came across the clearing. But do you think you are wise to marry?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ha, ha, Carter, old fellow, laughed little Captain Image,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But, continued Miss O'Neill,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, Carter, me lad, said he,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My God, he muttered,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't care what you say, Purser, me lad, Captain Image repeated,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, admitted Mr. Balgarnie, who prided himself on being a bit of a judge,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I hate the word 'strong.' When a she-missionary is too homely looking to be anything else, she prides herself on wearing a strong face."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, sir. 'Intense' for lady missionary,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Strong,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, at any rate, sir, you'll own she's mighty standoffish. I used to call good old Godfrey O'Neill, Godfrey, and therefore naturally I called his daughter Kate, and told her why. She didn't seem to hear me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She wasn't Godfrey's daughter, anyway. Godfrey never married, but I believe he'd nieces. Probably Miss Kate is one of them. The old man must have left her the business. Thing that amazes me is the way she's taken her grip of the concern, and made it hum."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And kept it dark even in Liverpool that she was a woman. That old head clerk of hers, that people thought was the manager, must be a rare close-lipped one."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He is, blight him! said Captain Image with emphasis."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I called in there two or three times after I'd got some of those please-buck-up letters from O'Neill and Craven, that I didn't care about, and the cauliflower-headed old humbug clean took me in. He was Mr. Crewdson, to be sure; no, he was not Mr. K. O'Neill; no, I couldn't see Mr. K. just then; no, he couldn't make an appointment for me with the gentleman; anything I wanted he would attend to personally. If I re-read the letters he was sure I should find that they were not unreasonable, but, on the other hand, would put me in the way of earning extra commission on cargo for myself. So it ended in my being civil to him, and he was really nothing more than a clerk. You can just picture to yourself, Purser, what I felt when I found out that I'd been civil to a clerk by mistake."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It was pretty hard lines, sir."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course a West African merchant's business is a rum contract for a young girl to catch hold of, and I don't say Miss Kate was wrong in keeping in the background to start with. In fact I'll own up straight that she was right, and the proof's plain in the way that firm's come back to life. Why, Purser, I'll bet you a bottle of Eno that O'Neill and Craven are doing just double the turn-over now they did twelve months ago."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You'll know best about that, sir, said Mr. Balgarnie with a sigh, as he remembered that only Captain Image touched commission on the cargo which the _M'poso_ collected on the Coast."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But I will own up that she has got the knack of making all the smarter men in the firm both on the Coast and at Liverpool keen on her when they thought she was a man. Of course it was a bit unlikely that the old-timer palm-oil ruffians like Swizzle-Stick Smith and Owe-it-Slade would take to new ways that meant more work, all at once, though for that matter I'll bet Slade put off making up his mind for so long as to whether he liked hustling or he didn't, that finally he dropped into the new ways without knowing it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Slade's gone off up-country to find the firm a rubber property, Purser, me lad. Laura told me about it last night. She hasn't heard of him once since he pulled out of Smooth River, and she's very anxious about him. I hope none of those up-country bushmen have chopped Slade. I should be sorry to lose that man. He owes me a matter of three sovereigns, and that old Holland gun of mine that he borrowed for half an hour eighteen months ago has gone up-country with him. I believe he's in the ribs of the fo'c'sle shop, too, for the thick end of a fiver."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Four-seventeen-nine. I've given both Chips and the bo's'n a rare dressing down about it. They've no business to let anyone with Slade's reputation have as much tick as that. The bo's'n's new to the Coast--our bo's'ns always do seem to die, sir--but old Chips ought to know that's no way to run a fo'c'sle shop. They can chuck away their own money as they choose, but I told them both plainly that I can't afford to drop my share in a sum like that."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nor can I, said the other sleeping partner."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You can let both Chips and the bo's'n understand that unless I see a good round sum in hard cash as my share of profits when we get back to Liverpool, they don't ride in the old _M'poso_ next trip. They can put their book debts where the monkey put the nuts. They don't pay me out with those. No, by Crumbs!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Miss Kate, by the way, was mighty anxious to know what profits there were in fo'c'sle shops. Of course I said I'd heard of them on other boats, but we'd never allow such a thing on the _M'poso_."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Um, said Captain Image thoughtfully,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I say, Captain, what's between her and Laura? They seem to know one another pretty intimately."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Met in Las Palmas when they were kiddies. Pass me the compasses off the chart table. My pipe's jammed. Thank you, me lad. Owe-it-Slade got two years' tick at that convent school out on the Telde road for Laura, and Miss Kate was running about the islands a good deal then with old Godfrey. Godfrey had a tomato farm out past Santa Brigida, and they used to have Laura up there for all her holidays. By Crumbs, Purser, me lad, how that little girl's shot up. It's a dashed pity she's a nigger."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "D'you suppose Carter knows it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If he doesn't I shan't tell him, and don't you; for two reasons. First, there's Miss Kate to be thought of. I watched the way that girl eyed him, and by Crumbs, I tell you, me lad, I was glad he was booked. She's going to stay out here on the Coast for a good spell, and he'll be close and handy, and somehow I've got the opinion that red-headed chap is just the sort of man she'll marry. He's not a beauty, but he's a good, tough, wholesome face on him; he's a lot struck on her; and he's a gentleman. I can do with her bossing; she's a nice way of wrapping up her pill and ramming it home with a smile. But I'd not like to see a red-haired youngster I brought out here as a clerk eighteen months ago, head of the O'Neill and Craven concern and expecting me to knuckle under. I'd do it, of course; I'd be civil to old Harry himself, me lad, if he could bring cargo to the _M'poso_; but I'll not deny to you it would stick if I had to start ladling out champagne in this chart house to Carter, and sit and listen whilst he strutted out his views on the decay of British influence in West Africa."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It would be pretty tough, Mr. Balgarnie admitted."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But you said there was another reason you wanted him to marry Laura."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, I do. I like that girl. I knew her when I first came down the Coast as mate. I remember the first time I saw her as if it was yesterday. I was standing up against the tally desk beside number three hatch, ticking off the cargo list as they hove stuff up and dropped it in the surf boats. It was on the old _Fernando Po_, that beat her bottom out afterwards when Williams tried to drive her over Monk bar at half ebb. There was a case marked with double-diamond that was O'Neill and Craven's consigning all right, but with no name of factory. I knew old Swizzle-Stick Smith and Malla-Nulla well enough already, and I didn't know Slade, and so naturally I thought Smith should have it, and ordered the case back again into the hold. But just then up came a little nipper of about eight or ten years old, as self-possessed as you like, and says, 'Are you Mr. Image?' 'That's me,' says I. 'What's the message?' 'Oh, no message,' says she, 'only Daddy says that if I can find you and stand by your heels and not bother I may stay aboard, but if not I'm to go ashore by the next boat and get on with my lessons.' Well, it didn't take much seeing through what was meant there."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, sir, said Mr. Balgarnie heartily."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "By all accounts old Cappie Williams was the hardest case they ever knew even on the West Coast, and that's saying a lot. I only knew him for a year, and I wasn't particular in those days, but he was more than even I could stand."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He was the limit. Well, me lad, that was the first time I saw Laura, and she stood beside me half the day at the tally desk there, and thanked me for the entertainment when Slade sent off a boy to take her ashore. She gave me a kiss when she turned to go down the side--well, you see, I've--I've never quite forgotten that kiss, Balgarnie, me lad."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know, skipper, said Mr. Balgarnie rather thickly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A kid once kissed me, of her own blessed accord, too, like that. It sort of burnt in. I beg your pardon, sir, for interrupting."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not at all, me lad. Here you, steward. Hi, Brass-Pan."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We fit for two cocktail, plenty-long ones. Well, as I was saying, Balgarnie, me lad, I've always had a bit of soft place for Laura, though I suppose she rightly is snuff and butter, by Crumbs you'd never guess it from her looks unless you went over her with a lens, and I'd just feel all broken up if she was to go the way that lot usually do go. So if this young Carter, who seems a nice clean-run sort of lad, will marry her with a ring, I'm going to weigh in with at least a best silver-plate teapot for a wedding present."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You can put me down for the ditto sugar and cream, said the purser with emotion."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It was a kiddie just like Laura I was fond of myself. Only--only-- Well, Skipper, I suppose a good many of us are blackguards down here on the Coast. Why the sulphur doesn't your boy bring those cocktails?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "By Crumbs! said he,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, if I had done that, the Purser mused to himself,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Faugh, said the trader's wife,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "--the poor woman sighed here--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're a good, kind man, Miss O'Neill was saying to a very smiling Captain Image,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Miss Kate, I was sure you'd find that what I said was true, and that Smooth River factory was no place for a lady like you. You see those dead niggers are fresh now, but when the sun gets on 'em--er--I mean there's no trade coming into this section of the Coast just now till that blessed old King of Okky opens the roads again, and he won't do that yet awhile on his own dirty account, and neither you nor I have got the ju-ju that will make him. My dear Miss, I'm just as pleased as a monkey with green--er--with a green tail to hear you're going to take the round trip home with me, and if my clean collars do run out, you must remember that we all wear panjammers when we're south of the Islands and the trippers. If only I'd thought of shipping a jack-wash when I got my Krooboys at Sarry Leone. Well, one can't be prepared for everything."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wouldn't strain the supply of collars for worlds. I only want you to take me two days on from here and drop me at this factory again on the way back."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Miss, he said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Won't you ask me into the chart house, Captain, and send Brass-Pan for some tea? I'm absolutely dying for tea. And you can have a cocktail. I've got a long story I want to tell you. There's cargo waiting for you, Captain, up a creek that opens off Smooth River which you've never been up, and which I think will pretty well fill the _M'poso_ without your troubling to call anywhere else."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "By Crumbs, Miss, I'd ordered them to boil up that tea when I saw you shoot out of the factory creek in your surf boat, and till you reminded me, I'd clean forgotten it. And here you've been standing and yarning to me on the front door step all the time. They'll call the _M'poso_ a dry boat with a vengeance if this tale gets about. I shall be chaffed to death over it. Come up on top."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Balgarnie, me lad, said Captain Image,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What dear, good people you are. And I made sure you would detest me, Captain, when I tell you I want you to change from your usual routine."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Even though it is to get all your holds full of cargo which you would never have touched if it had not been for a hint that just came to me an hour ago."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We carry mails, you know, said Image doubtfully,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But cargo. Let me suggest to you again, cargo?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, Miss Kate, there's no other lady on earth I'd say the same to, but I'll not deny the fact--to you, mind, and quite between ourselves--that cargo interests me. And letting you further into what's considered one of the deadest of secrets, there are times when cargo commission can just out-balance fines for being late with mails. You see I guess what you have in your mind, Miss. You want me to run back and take off the cargo that's waiting at Malla-Nulla before those Okky-men come down and raid it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There, she said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I knew you'd consent. There's only one little detail you've made a mistake about. How soon can you be off? Judging from the music of the winches, you're working in the cargo here at a famous speed."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The mate reported to me just before you came on board that he'd have the lot shipped by five o'clock. Those passenger boys of ours that you've made factory boys for the time being were working splendidly, so Mr. Mate said. But what's this little mistake, Miss Kate? I can't go right away back to O'Neill and Craven's factory at Monk River, if that's what you mean."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But the first to turn up at the factory after you'd left me there was not one of our own people, but a caller. He was the agent in charge of the German factory at Mokki. He turned up in a dug-out, and he gave us to understand that he was the most frightened man in Africa. He said his voyage down the creeks was one series of miraculous escapes. He said he'd come to take shelter under the British flag; but when he found that by an oversight we hadn't got such a piece of furniture about the place, and when he saw the holes in the walls and the roof and the--the--what there was lying about under that blazing sun in the clearing, he was quite of opinion that he hadn't run far enough."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The blighted Dutchman,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, you see, said the head of O'Neill and Craven confidentially,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And now the King of Okky has put ju-ju on you, stopped the roads, and there you are caught short, me lad--I beg pardon, Miss Kate, I should have said."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course it only worried me for the moment. These tight places are never really tight if you take the trouble to think out a way through to the other side. In this case it's shown itself to be delightfully simple. I've bought out the German."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then I wish you'd asked me for advice first. But perhaps you haven't clinched the deal, and can back out of it still. If you'll take the tip from an old Coaster like me, you have nothing to do with it. His old Dutch factory's only worth scrap price."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's all I've given for it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And when you do get the oil out of it that's stored there, if it hasn't been looted whilst he's been away pleasuring down the creeks in his canoe, where are you? No better than here. Your trade will be dead. The King of Okky's stopped all the roads."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, I'm just going to give you a little geographical surprise. Have you got a map?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Coast charts, of course, which include the river mouths, but I should pile up the old packet in a week if I relied on them. I'm my own pilot for the most part, Miss Kate, and that's why with God's Providence and a sound use of drugs I've managed to work successfully on the coast all these years."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, if you haven't got a map of the back country here in your stock, I carry a very accurate one in my head, and if you'll give me a paper and a pencil, I'll draw out something that will surprise you."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, Captain, don't just shake your head and laugh. Let me have your criticisms."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm not saying, of course, that it's not a very clever map. It is that, and the way you've put the rivers in would beat the knowledge of many who have been on the Coast for years. You've quite the knack of drawing a map, Miss Kate, though there's another creek here that you've missed, and this continuation of what we call the Dog's-leg channel you must have guessed at, because I never heard of its being navigated, and nobody knows where it goes to."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It leads to my new factory at Mokki."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, it may do, though you can take it from me there's no water for a steamboat that draws even eleven foot six. But the thing you're mainly wrong in is this part you've marked as the Okky country. You haven't carried it anywhere near far enough back."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're quoting from the Royal Geographical Map,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, Miss, I am, Captain Image admitted,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Neither should I. But you see maps have always been a fad with me, and since Mr. Godfrey died, and I had the whole weight of O'Neill and Craven landed upon my one pair of shoulders whether I liked it or not, I looked upon maps from a very different point of view. As everybody on the Coast knows everybody else's business, I need hardly point out to you that during Mr. Godfrey's latter days O'Neill and Craven had been allowed to run down pretty badly, and when I took hold, the firm was--well, what shall I say?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dicky, suggested Captain Image kindly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But I can quite understand all the hard words you'd like to let out if I wasn't here."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, we'll put it, Captain, that the firm was decidedly dicky, and I've had a most interesting time in pulling it onto its feet. Incidentally I've given up drawing maps from an amateur's point of view, and have been drawing them with an entire eye to business in the future. You've no idea how interesting it is to a business woman, Captain, when some special information comes to her and she is able to go to her map and fill in a mile or so of river that she'd had to leave a gap for, or sketch in a newly-discovered trade route through what was thought to be hopeless swamp, or fill in part of the boundary line of territory that up to then had merely merged off into blank space."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My Crumbs, said Captain Image admiringly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It was only the day before I left Liverpool that I got news of where the Okky territory ended. The French have been having some mysterious expedition in at the back there for purposes of their own, and the officer in command very unwisely caned the only other white man with him, who was a Zouave, and wasn't really white at all. He wanted revenge, so he came to me and told, and got fifty pounds, and said he'd never enjoyed letting off spite so much in his life before."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Daisy isn't the word for you, Miss, he affirmed,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Poof! I wouldn't for worlds. They're all too pompous and too dull. They only talk, and pose for the newspapers; they never really do anything constructive in the House. Now, I like to do things; and if ever I marry, it will be a man who can do things that I've tried at rather better than I can do them myself. But we're getting away from the factory at Mokki. Now, the German agent doesn't know it, and I didn't feel called upon to tell him, but it's quite possible to open up trade routes to that point that don't pass through the Okky country at all. So that upsets the old King's notion of stopping the roads at present, and in the future, when he gets tired of cutting off his nose to spite his face, and tries to set trade going again, he'll find the stuff is being carried round very comfortably outside his boundary, and that there is no more blackmail to collect. How does that strike you, Captain? Now, am I a crazy woman who is bound to bust up O'Neill and Craven's if I am left long enough to it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I never said that, Captain Image protested violently,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, I really am awfully glad you're going to be nice, said Miss O'Neill as she handed back her teacup with a sigh of relief,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's enough to make any man swear,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I agree with you cordially, said Miss O'Neill,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, I'm damned if I do, Miss Kate, said Image politely."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I shouldn't dream of forgetting what is due to a lady. But don't you be too sure of having your whim gratified even now. I don't see any way of getting the _M'poso_ to Mokki up those bits of creeks unless we put wheels under her and pull her there through the bush."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Have you ever seen a steamer called the _Frau Pobst_?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I have. She's a funny old brig-rigged relic, with sawn-off smoke stacks and no boats."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No boats?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, she started with some in the year one when she was built, but as they always got washed overboard when she found herself in a sea-way, I guess they grew tired of replacing them. I believe she does carry some patent folding concertinas tied up somewhere near her davits, but they're to pass the Dutch Board of Trade. They aren't for use. Yes, I know the old _Frau Pobst_. She generally wants two crews each voyage."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How's that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Goes so slow, the first lot die of old age."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What a labor it must have been to get an old tub like that up to Mokki."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It would take her as many days as it would take me hours in the _M'poso_, said Image, and could have bitten out his tongue when the words escaped. But Kate O'Neill had got up from the settee and was shaking his hand."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I believe in reality, Captain, you're just as keen a business man as I am a business woman. Only you're shockingly shy about showing it. No, don't get up. I'm just going to run back ashore again to finish things up here. I'll be back by the time you've got steam. Please don't get up."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "By Crumbs, Miss Kate, but don't you try to dictate to me about that. I'm going to see you off from the front doorsteps myself. By Crumbs, there isn't another lady in Africa I admire half as much."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Thank you, me lad,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "By Jove, broke in Carter,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wish I'd a gun. There's a monkey on the foredeck. I'd like that little beggar's skin. I wonder if I could catch him."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't you try, me lad, said Image."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The odds are that the front end of this packet's a menagerie of red mangrove ants that could gnaw chunks off a tin-covered crusader. He jammed the engine-room telegraph with a vicious whirr to Full Speed Astern, and turned to the unfortunate third mate."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Here, you, if you think you know enough to tell the difference between land and water, lower a boat and take out a kedge astern. Wait a minute. Now, you're not to drop that kedge in the mud. It'll draw through that like pulling a hairpin out of a pot of marmalade. You're to get ashore and hook it among those mangrove roots. Just try and get it into your intelligent head that I don't want that kedge to come home directly we put a strain on the wire. When you've done that you can come back and go to your room and read Shakespeare. I guess that's about all you blooming brass-bound Conway sailors are fit for, except sparking the girls and drawing your pay. By Crumbs! if we hadn't Miss Kate on board, and for anything I know within earshot, I could just give you an opinion of your looks that would make you want to cry."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Great whiskers! man, why did you shut the port-hole? You're lean; but if I stay in this atmosphere I shall peg out of heat apoplexy in half an hour. Here, let me open the port and stick out the wind scoop."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Wind scoop's no good; there isn't a breath. And if you open the port you'll be devoured. I tried it. I'm a Dalesman and I like a draught of air, but it's no go here. Red ants, I think they are. Look at the way they've been eating the insides out of your domestic cockroaches. Now gaze on this chop bowl? Isn't it a gem? Any stay-at-home Englishman would spot it as genuine native workmanship in a moment. All done with a blunt knife; that's the great tip in this sort of carving."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Have a drop of whiskey? You fit for dash me dem bowl?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, Purser, I'm not going to give away anything just now. I want five shillings spot cash for this specimen, and it's dirt cheap at that. When you've weathered it a bit, and given it a dressing of good yellow palm oil, it will fetch a golden sovereign from a Las Palmas tripper, easy."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They're a hard-up lot, the people who come to the Islands these days, and they're inclined to get too familiar if you offer as a favor to sell them anything they may see in your room. I've chucked showing them things. But I might get three half-crowns for that bowl in Liverpool. Of course, I don't want any commission from you, old fellow. I'll hand over every penny I'm paid for it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Look here, Purser, it's too hot for frills, and we know one another a bit too well for them to go down. Potter out five bob and the thing's yours to make what you can of. If you don't, I've another customer who'll give more. I'm hard up."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, of course, yes. You want to set up housekeeping, don't you? Well, old fellow, here are the two half-crowns towards the mangle or the grand piano or whatever you've set your mind on getting first. Sorry I ragged you about being engaged to Laura last night at Smooth River. But, you see, I know Owe-it Slade, and I've known Laura all her life, and of course I was a bit surprised to be told, you know--well, to be told that you, of all people, had made it up with her. But, as I say, I'm sorry I ragged you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Please don't apologize on a hot day like this, Carter snapped."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "As I don't value your opinion on a matter like that one jot, I naturally didn't let anything you said disturb my sleep. Good-afternoon. If you're going to occupy your room, I'll go out on deck and enjoy the infernal crushed-marigold stink of this drain from a different point."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That young man knows he's made a fool of himself, commented the Purser sagely,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Purser, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't think they'll be much use, boy. You've rubbed too much fluff off with those delicate paws of yours. Savvy?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I savvy I fit for dash,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Pooh, these are worth nothing. What do you take me for? A tripper, or the Bank of England? Ah, would you, you infernal thieving monkey?"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Purser, how you seen me take dem thing? You no see with you eyes. You eyes lib for look out of window."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Attend, said Mr. Balgarnie, and struck an attitude."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I am the man known to science as the Freak-who-has-eyes-at-the-back-of-his-head. Observe, I have my back to you and yet I can see that you are picking your nose with your strong left hand, and scratching the floor with your starboard toe."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I no fit for see you back eyes."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That is because they are ju-ju eyes. Oh, White-Man's-Trouble, I bid you fear the Powers of Darkness and steal no more anything that is mine. You savvy?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Savvy plenty!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And as a further punishment, I bid you catch me ten more butterflies, and take care you don't rub the feathers off, or they'll be no use to Miss Kate."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Missy Kate! What for she want dem bug? Dem no fit for chop."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To make ju-ju of."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Missy Kate no savvy ju-ju palaver. Dem Carter, he show her dem god with talk-pipe, an' she say, 'Well, dere no ju-ju about him.' Oh, Purser, I say dem god with talk-pipe plenty-too-much-fine ju-ju. Okky-men savvy plenty him ju-ju."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Your theology's a bit above my head, but I don't mind telling you in confidence that butterfly collecting's the lady's habit, just the same as--let me see--just the same as stealing things that are no use to you is yours, and spear making's Mr. Carter's. Savvy?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Savvy some, said the Krooboy doubtfully."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Does Missy sell dem bugs to steamah pursers, an' come ashore an' say dem dam' greedy hounds?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If you've got that idea in your aboriginal mind, said Mr. Balgarnie with a yawn,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I no fit for take dash from Missy, said White-Man's-Trouble with dignity."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I bring her plenty-too-many bugs for nix. I fit for know my job."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "So you honor her with your respectful admiration, too, do you? I wish I could get her knack. There, clear out with you, and put the door on the hook. Take your dirty hands away from that tooth-brush, confound you, and get out. It's my time for siesta."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Please let me do something, Kate. At least I can throw them overboard for you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My dear girl, I'm most pleased to be tempted away from work. In school days, as you will remember, I was worse than you were at sums. I've had to grind at them since, but it's not made me love them any the more. Why can't I be a rich woman without working for it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you want so very much to be rich?"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do I want to be rich? Well, of course. One can't have things or do things unless one has money. And if I don't get money, no one will for me; or, at least, I'd rather they wouldn't. Of course, you have got Mr. Carter to work for you, Laura; but I am sure, when you put it into cold words, you'd like him to make money, too. You don't want to live all your days on the Coast here, the pair of you. You look forward to going home, and having a house and a garden, and a motor car, and a man to drive it. And you'd like to have good servants and nice frocks. Yes, especially nice frocks."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Like yours. Yes, I should like a nice frock like that one, Kate, if you won't mind my copying it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What, this rag? My dear, sweet child, with your eyes, and your figure, and the complexion you'd grow in England, you'd pay to dress far more than ever I should. Mr. Carter will work hard and earn a big income, just for the satisfaction of seeing you decently clad."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why do you dislike my engagement so much, Kate?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Me dislike it? What rubbish. I think it's a most excellent thing for you, if only Mr. Carter goes on as he has begun."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then I'll word it differently. Why do you dislike George so much?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Whatever gave you that idea? Mr. Carter, considering the short time he has been on the Coast, has done most excellently for the firm, and--well--_l'état c'est moi_. I know you condemn me for being abominably commercial, but what nearer way do you think there can be to my heart than through my pocket?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Your heart! Laura repeated, and stared large-eyed at the yellow river that swirled past the steamer's rusty flanks. An alligator, that looked very much like a half submerged log, drifted down with the tide, and a bird that rode upon him dug vigorously between the rows of his plates with his beak. She watched them till they passed away down the stream and were lost in the glare of the sunshine."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wonder, she said in a half-whisper,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't mutter, she said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Your hair's not red in the least, Kate. It's a very dark auburn."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I should call it warmish. Anyhow, Mr. Carter's is red enough. And as you will drag the subject up, I must really point out to you that he's been hardly civil in the way he's avoided me. I haven't got smallpox."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're his employer. When you call him I'm sure he's glad enough to talk to you about what you want. But you must see his position; he wouldn't like to risk a snub by coming up when you might not happen to want him."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I see. The idea that all communications should be conducted in a cold business footing. Am I to understand that Mr. Carter wished you to convey that view to me, Laura?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You know quite well he didn't. Kate, we used to be friends. I wish you'd answer me honestly what I asked you just now."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't be tragic and ridiculous. You're half sick with the heat, and I really believe you want to quarrel with me by way of safety valve. Well, my dear, I shan't quarrel with you, that's all. I hate quarrelling. I've been dodging the excellent Captain Image all the day, as I know he wants to ease off his temper on me just because his silly old steamer has stuck her nose on the bank and got left by the tide. By the way, I candidly believe the accident happened just because he was amusing himself just at that precise moment with having a turn-up with--oh, well, we're getting onto touchy ground again. And--here is Mr. Carter. You seem in a hurry."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you mind going below? There are half a dozen big Okky war canoes round that point ahead there. I've been forrad there, and could see them quite plainly through the mangrove roots."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Have you told the Captain?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No. I'll tell him next. But will you go below, or into one of these deck houses? They are probably covering us this minute, and it's pot-leg they fire, not bullets. Pot-leg spreads and can make ghastly wounds."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't like running away."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you could do any good staying out in the open I wouldn't ask you to move. Laura, will you persuade Miss O'Neill to go into cover, as she won't take any notice of me?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Thank you, said Kate sharply,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Very good, said Carter;"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There, Carter, me lad, said he,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Couldn't hit a haystack with anything except a scatter gun."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, said Image dryly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Which I am, Captain. So, therefore, it's no use going into useless possibilities. By the way, isn't that stern wire slackening?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "By Crumbs, me lad, you've got a quick eye. The tide's coming up underneath her, and she's slipping off. Here you, Mr. Third Mate, ring those engines to full astern, and try and keep it in your head that you'd be in your room now if I weren't short of officers."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll show these Okky blighters what trouble is, declared Captain Image,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Faugh! said Image, and spat."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Did you catch the smell of those beauties when we had them abeam? Talk of a 'bus stable struck by lightning!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They aren't there just to take in the scenery,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An Okky-man is born to mischief even as the sparks fly upward. Look, they're casting off their shorefasts and getting under weigh down stream. No, by Crumbs, they're turning up stream after me. Well, of all the blighted cheek! Do you know what that means, Carter, me lad? They're going to follow us. They think they've got some ju-ju by which they can cut us off from the Coast. Ah, here's Miss Kate. Well, Miss, as I've you to think of as well as my ship, I shall turn presently and run back again for the bar. You see for yourself, I should think now, that it isn't healthy up this river, and all the cargo in Africa is no use to a man if he can't get it shipped when he comes to the beach where it's stored. If any one of the war canoes get in my way, I'll show you what those bushmen look like when they're swimming in yellow water, for as sure as the Lord made crocodiles, I'll ram their noisy dugouts if I can. I'll teach them to thump their nasty smelling war drums at me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Poof, Captain, don't you try to take me in. I should like to hear anyone else suggesting that you couldn't take the _M'poso_ to a spot where the _Frau Pobst_ had made regular voyages."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I can take this packet anywhere that blessed Dutchman's been, Miss."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course you can. And when the _Frau Pobst's_ captain has shipped cargo from a spot----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And given up going there, Miss, because it's too dangerous."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Precisely. Well, as I couldn't insult you by calling you less than twice as brave as the German, that means that no little trouble that's going on between here and Mokki will frighten you in the very least. Is that good argument?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, go on, Miss. Twist me round your finger. I like it. Besides it isn't the first time I've played a neck-or-nothing game. But I'm hanged if I see that it's an amusement for a pretty young lady like you."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, it is nice of you to give me a promise like that, Captain."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Lake what?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To say that you'll go on till my nerves give way. Well, let it be so. I promise to give you news of it the moment I'm frightened. Look, there's an omen for you to read to me. The Okky-men in that first war canoe are all standing up and waving their spears. What does that mean, I wonder?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hallo, Meredith, I heard rumors that there was a white man up in this part of the bush, but I never guessed it was you. I did think of sending on a runner to see, but somehow I didn't."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, you wouldn't, said the older man."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I never knew you make up your mind to anything unless it was decided for you. Now, look here, Slade, we're in lonely country here, and if I shoot you, you'll never be missed; and, by gad, shoot you I will unless you mend your memory."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Poof! what does it matter? We're the only white men within two hundred miles, and the boys are out of earshot."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A black boy can hear a lot farther than you think, and for that matter I've known trees in West Africa to have ears that understand English--at least that has been the only explanation one could find of the way things have leaked out. But we'll leave all that alone. I've given you to understand by what name I wish to be addressed."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, you needn't be so short about it. I've always called you Smith down in the Coast factories. Of course I can't forget that I once knew you when you were----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Will you hold your slobbering tongue? If you can't, say so, and I'll stop it once and for always. I've told you my wish; to you or anyone else I'm Smith, or Swizzle-Stick Smith, which you like. I've no connection with anything that went before, and 'pon my soul, as you're the only man now alive that knows it, I believe I'd be a lot safer if you were out of the way."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, do stop this wrangle. I'll call you Swizzle-Stick Smith to the end of the chapter, and forget that you were ever anything other than a drunken old palm-oil ruffian, if it pleases you. Come to my hut and chop. I shot some parrots this morning. They'll taste a bit like high rook, but they are better than tinned stuff anyway. They came over finely; real raketers. It was quite like the old days at home. This gun, by the way, is about my last link with ancestral splendor. Look there, a Holland. They wanted me to have ejectors, I remember, but I wouldn't."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, he said grimly,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What are you driving at? What's Cappie Image to do with it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's my gun. I had it--well, as you've started the forbidden subject already--I had it before the fall. Image saw it at Malla-Nulla one day when I was full up and walked off with it, and I never managed to get it back from him. He always said the beach was too bad to risk letting a surf boat bring it ashore. Well, you may keep the thing for the present, and I'll take a bowlful of your parrot stew by way of rent. This the house? You've managed to find yourself pretty comfortable quarters, I see."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Does it run to a peg?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It does. Don't spoil my fine vintage port with tobacco. You can smoke afterwards. Here, boy, we fit for gin."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gin lib,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good. Now, when you see dem Smith fit for smoke, you bring fire, one-time. Savvy?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I fit."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You travel in comfort, Slade."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The secret is, I don't move along too fast. I've been in this village a fortnight. I don't know when I shall make up my mind to pull out and go on."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not till you've eaten it bare or are forced off some other way, I suppose. You're a curious envoy for a confiding employer in Liverpool to send out into the bush."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Old Godfrey wouldn't have done it. But this new K. O'Neill hasn't seen my cutaway chin. K.'s a hustler, but he's young, remarkably young."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Have you done anything in the way of getting him a rubber property?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, curiously enough I have. At least, I've bought him up a few square miles of country that rubber vines would grow on well enough if it was cleared, and planted, and tended, and no one put ju-ju on them."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Is it get-at-able?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's on some river or other. The ditch isn't marked on the map, but I daresay a steamer could get up if it was worth while. The title's as good as one could expect."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That means it won't be jumped so long as you pay fifty pounds a year to the next claimant."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I should say five-and-twenty will fix him, said Slade lazily."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You see he's headman of the next village and he thinks he's got some unproductive bush to sell himself. I've rammed into his skull the great truth that his deal can't go through if he starts trying to jump his neighbor's land and unsteadies the market. I think those considerations will outweigh even his nigger's love for litigation--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wonder, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, I found myself in comfortable quarters, and I couldn't make up my mind to move on and try more likely country elsewhere. So I stayed and talked rubber-palaver with the headman. One had to do something for amusement. Besides they'd a tree of alligator pears in the village that were exactly ripe, and it would have been a crime to leave them to benighted Africans. By the way, very rude of me not to ask before, but what have you done since you left the Coast?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Got into a very ugly hole, said Swizzle-Stick Smith shortly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Rubber-palaver?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, sorry for inquiring. I thought that was what you came up for?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "So it was, and I started off from the Coast with a full intention of carrying out O'Neill and Craven's business. But I got led off on an old trail."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ah, said Slade thoughtfully."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I believe I could guess."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Guessing's dangerous. But I may as well own up to you frankly that I've been seeing the King of Okky."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, you've a nerve. I shouldn't have cared for that job myself."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It wasn't pleasant. Okky City jars one's sense of decency rather badly just now. Old Kallee's been going it extra strong on human sacrifices, you know. His private crucifixion tree is a thing you don't like to think about."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Filthy old beast he is."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But he's the strongest man hereabouts."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I see. And you got onto your old game of the pre-Smith days and tried to get him to put the Okky country and his royal self under the formal protectorate of the British Empire? I thought you dropped all that tommyrot when you got kicked--I mean when you turned trader and became known to fame as Mr. Smith. Sink the past, of course, sink the past, but you started it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I couldn't help going. I got news of a French expedition in Okky City. Of course I've been damnably treated by the British Foreign Office in days gone by, but the old fires will relight sometimes. Frenchmen in Okky City, I'll trouble you, Slade, and of course with the usual accompaniment. _Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_. So I couldn't resist trying my own hand with the Kallee, even though I hadn't anything at all up to his weight as an introductory dash."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Half a dozen cases of Heidsieck is the nearest way to his royal ear, though I hear that lately he's developed a taste for the better years of Krug."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's quite true. It was a fancy touch of Burgoyne, our Monk River man. I call that hardly legitimate business, you know. German champagne and angostura are good enough for me, and they ought to be good enough for a black savage like Kallee. Dash it, what right's he to a palate?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Would he see you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, of course I've known him since before he killed his predecessor and got the King's stool, and so he's a bit freer with me than he is with most people."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And you drank together till you were both blind speechless?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wasn't, anyway, said the older man shortly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I kept my head and stuck to my tale. The Frenchman wasn't in it. He went to sleep before we whacked the first ten bottles, and he was laid up with a fine dose of fever next day; but there was no shifting Kallee. He doesn't care an escribello for all the might, majesty, dominion and power of the British Empire. He's got ten small cannon up there, that, according to him, can quite account for Great Britain if it comes to worry him, and in the meanwhile the French are very kind friends. They've given him a gramophone, and a general's uniform, and an ice-making machine, and when they bring him the canoe load of Winchester repeaters he's asked for, he'll sign a treaty of allegiance to France."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Arms of precision! The Frenchman had better take care. If any of our Government fellows catch him at that game, they'll shoot him first and inquire into him afterwards."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, what he's going to do in the matter, I don't exactly know. You see, the beggar had Kallee's ear, and to tell you the plain truth he had me deported. Kallee said that if he laid hands on me again, he would have my skin off, and stuff it with straw, and stick it in the road that leads to Malla-Nulla as a warning to the next Englishman that came along that it would be more healthy to keep inside his own marches."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I bet you footed it away."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What the devil else could I do? And here am I, no forwarder with O'Neill and Craven's job than I was the day I tramped out of Malla-Nulla. I did say 'Rubber' to the King, and he did hear out my tale. He said it was good palaver, and set on a couple of hundred slaves there and then with matchets to clear bush and plant rubber vines to grow revenue for himself. But he sells no land to Englishmen, and I guess if another of the breed comes up yet awhile, Kallee'll plant him. By the way, Slade, have you been in touch with the bush telegraph?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, I heard that the usual vague rows and horribles were going on in Okky City, but I didn't pay much attention to that. I did hear, too, that Cappie Image and the _M'poso_ helped a red-headed man, who I suppose was that young Carter of yours, in some sort of a row at presumably Malla-Nulla. I took the trouble to go into the dates; the news must have travelled here in thirty hours, and we're a good two hundred miles from the Coast. It is a bit marvellous. I wonder how the deuce the niggers do it. Some sort of ju-ju, I suppose, but I never met a white man yet who understood the trick."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Did you hear anything about a white woman stirring things up?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Certainly, I did, and concluded it was Laura. I left her in charge at Smooth River, you know, and she's grown into a jolly capable girl, let me tell you, old man, when she cares to spread herself. What are you twiddling about your eyeglass for? Why don't you say out what you mean? Oh, I see. White. By gad, I'd never thought of that. Even a bush telegraph, which is always liable to mistake in detail, would never blunder into calling my little girl white. By gad, Smith, what a damnable thing that 'sins of the fathers' law is. If I were a man that ever looked so much as half a day ahead, I believe I should go mad at the thought of what will become of Laura in the future. You're a tough old ruffian with no cares and you could never understand what that kiddie is to me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No use crying over a marriage that's over. Everybody that knows her will do his best for Laura, and if any man tried hanky-panky tricks with her he'd probably die one of the local deaths of Africa in very quick time. But about this white woman. I heard about her, too. There was a big tom-toming far away in the bush one night, ten minutes after the sun went out, and my boys listened hard and then set up a fine chatter. It was long enough before I could make anything out of them, but at last I heard something about 'a white mammy' that set me thinking. I got the idea at first that someone, probably the Okky-men, had been knocking a she-missionary on the head, and that made me cock up my ears. You know when a trader or a man in one of the services gets scuppered out here, the pious people at home say it's his own brutal fault and the poor African is quite right in what he does. But when it's a missionary, the Exeter Hall crew insist on war."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Quite so, said Swizzle-Stick Smith. He got up and limped across to the doorway and stood there for a minute puffing pale blue smoke into the dazzle of sunshine. Then he came back again and once more sat on the earthen floor with his back against a bale."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The boys out there, both yours and mine, are still harping on the same subject."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I didn't make out that the white woman was killed."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nor did I, when I went into the matter further. I was only explaining what gave me the first interest in the subject, because if there had been a she-missionary killed, all the bush would know that meant war, and they would slaughter every white man they came across out of sheer light-heartedness. No, if that had happened, you would not have seen me here. I should have lit out for the Coast, one-time. But I presently found that the white woman had not been killed, but that she was a someone who seemed to puzzle my boys exceedingly. There seemed to be heap-too-much ju-ju about her. She did things no one else could tackle."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sort of champion lady weight-lifter? Boy, fill Mr. Smith's pipe and bring him fire."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You know that Kroo word, Oomsha, that means Sultana or woman-above-a-headman, or something like that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I heard a tale of an Oomsha once somewhere up Sokoto way. She's been head wife of an Emir, and when he died she killed all the heirs and ran the town herself. I thought it meant more witch or conjurer. It's a ju-ju word."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, I won't quarrel with you over etymology, and we seem to agree enough on the definition for practical purposes. Now, my boys said that this white woman was an Oomsha. Did you hear that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not I. I tell you I thought it was Laura they were gassing about, and I didn't trouble myself to inquire more deeply."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dash it, said the old man fiercely,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Is the mythical lady setting everybody by the ears and preparing for a holy something?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's the maddening part of it. They all seem to like her. She's stirring up everybody, she's upsetting your factory and mine, she's dragged the man with the red head in adoration to her feet and then spurned him from her, and she's even captured the warm and profane Cappie Image as one of her servitors."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Poof! blarney old Image! Now, that proves you've got onto a fairy tale."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I tell you I have not. The bush telegraph never lies. You may misunderstand it, but if you take time and trouble, and dig deep enough, you'll always come to the truth of things. As sure as we are sweating in this bush village here, there's a white woman on the Coast turning all the business there upside down."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've got it, said Slade."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "K. O'Neill's tired of having all his bright ideas comfortably shelved by you and me, and so his new happy thought is to send his fascinating typewriter out to hand instructions over in person, and wait till they're put through. Your Carter and my Laura would be just the sort of enthusiastic young people to fall in with a scheme like that. But I must say the conquest of Image beats me. It would take a heap more than a hen typewriter to tame Cappie Image-me-lad."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, I thought of all that, but there's one blessed thing that upsets it completely. The Oomsha is making headquarters at the Dutch factory at Mokki, and building a fort there. Now, play on that."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Weather too hot, said Slade."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Whe-ew! I wish the breeze would come."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dash it, man, think! A white woman building a fort up at Mokki."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sounds buccaneerish, or I'll tell you what, German. Slade sat up with a sudden spurt of unaccustomed energy and ran the perspiration off his face with a forefinger."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "By gad! I didn't think of that, but picture the joys of having a beastly German in at the back of us, with a Government subsidy, and a price-cutting apparatus all complete."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, said Swizzle-Stick Smith grimly,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Quite so,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good Lord, what's that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Some poor brute of a farmer, who's been working on his cassava ground, being pulled down by a leopard. There, don't get up; you can't do anything. Don't you hear he's quiet now, which means 'palaver set' as far as the farmer is concerned. That will make the rest of his agricultural neighbors careful for the next twenty-four hours, and go to their work in pairs, and take their spears. At the end of twenty-four hours their massive memories will fail them and they'll stroll out alone just as the spirit moves them, and someone else will be chopped. Those squeals used to make one feel rather sick at first, and one was apt to get excited and rush out with a gun. But it never did any good. Spotted Dick always prefers to dine in privacy and drags his mutton back into the bush. I can imagine, Slade added with a faint laugh,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "H'm, said Smith thoughtfully."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "When we walked in here I noticed I limped on one side and you limped on the other. We sort of jabbed at one another, in and out. Now, limping is a new accomplishment for you. Have you been interviewing a leopard personally?'"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, you see, a son of the headman here took it into his silly head to get in a leopard's way one day, and I knew the old chap was awfully fond of the lad. So I just retrieved him, and we both got a bit clawed in the process. But it was purely a matter of business for K. O'Neill. The old goat of a headman wouldn't listen to any suggestion for buying rubber lands before. Dash it all, Smith, I am slack, I know, but I do try and put in a bit of work for the firm in return for my pay sometimes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Fire's the only thing we have to be frightened of for the present, said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The ancients, said Miss O'Neill,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Not having bulls, said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Mr. Carter!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, I beg your pardon for being horrible, but I tell you frankly that if I thought for a moment that a message like that would be believed, I'd send it in a moment. You know, Miss Head, we're in an uncommon tight place, and as acting commander-in-chief, I tell you flatly it will be a case of 'all-in' if it comes to a scrap."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, Missy, dem Carter mean he fit for use ju-ju besides guns,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It couldn't have been put more neatly. We must call in even the powers of darkness, as far as they'll answer to a whistle, if it comes to open fighting. But in the meanwhile, as some solemn idiot said in a text-book, 'preparedness for war is the best insurance for peace,' and I ask you to observe this tramway which the boys have laid down during the night. Trouble here was ganger, and I've only had to bang him for letting the gauge spread in two places."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Is it to show sightseers quickly round the works?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, madam. I shall mount on trucks those two tinpot brass muzzle-loading signal guns that you bamboozled out of old Image, have embrasures (if that's the word for holes to shoot through) at all the corners, and I can rush those guns round to fire at all points of the compass at a pace that will surprise friend Kwaka, if he is in command of the enemy. I am pleased to say Kwaka looks for the supernatural when he is dealing with me, and I make a point of conscience in seeing that he gets it. I found some sheets of yellow tissue-paper in the feteesh here, all mottled with black mildew, and they gave me an idea. I cut out a leopard and pasted him together, and left a hole in him underneath, and fitted that with a wire carrier and a cotton wool burner that will hold spirit."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What, a fire balloon?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Just that. With a dose of trade gin on the cotton wool, and a match and a little careful manipulation, we'll have a portent sailing up into the sky that will astonish the Okky-men's weak nerves in most disastrous style."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You are really a most ingenious person, said Miss O'Neill."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Isn't he, Laura?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I suppose so,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's that blessed Cascaes that's the weak spot in the defence. I suppose I've the usual West Coast prejudice against Portuguese; you know even the natives divide creation up into white men, black men, and Portuguese, and the particular specimen we've taken over here with the factory just bristles with bad points."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I think he's rather nice, said Laura."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You were fighting with him this morning and I hated to see it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, said Carter, judicially,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I shouldn't define it as fighting exactly, but I'll admit, if you like, that I was kicking him. You see, Miss Head here has given most strict orders that not more than six strangers were ever to be admitted into the fort together at one time. He'd fourteen actually in the feteesh. Now, supposing those gallant fourteen suddenly produced weapons and held the gate whilst friends they'd ambushed outside ran across the clearing and rushed us, where'd we be?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, said Laura,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm sorry I interfered if it was Kate's orders you were carrying out."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So, Miss Head, with your permission I'll run up a chimbeque for the fellow outside the walls."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where did you get that word chimbeque from? Kate asked."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's Fiote, not Oil Rivers talk."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I say, what a marvel you are to know things! I bet Laura didn't spot that. Why did I use the word? Well, we had a Portuguee linguister down at Malla-Nulla who had worked in the Congo, and he imported that and a lot more Congolese words as part of his baggage, and we absorbed them. Observe now. Trouble! I say, Trouble, come in here, and keep away from that sugar bowl in case you are tempted. Just stand there by the door. Now, tell me. You fit for savvy what a chimbeque is?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dem bushman's word for hut. I fit for learn English on steamah. You can tell Missy I once was stand-by-at-crane boy on black funnel boat. I no say chimbeque; I say 'house.'"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You fairly overflow with education at times. There, run away outside, and play again. So you see, Miss Head, if Cascaes runs a sort of extra feteesh away out in the clearing, he can't land us into much danger however careless and indiscreet he may be. Of course it will entail a little extra labor below in handling both produce and trade goods, but now we've got the fort practically built, I've a lot more boys I can set free for the ordinary work. Which reminds me that I forgot to ask if this new boy you've got for butterfly hunter is any better than the last?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm afraid he isn't much. He doesn't tear the net all to bits, but he's rubbed every specimen fatally before he pinned it into the collecting box."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I was afraid there was friction. I saw White-Man's-Trouble call up that boy and look into the collecting box when he thought I was safely siestaing. They had a little excited conversation, and then Trouble grabbed him by a handful of wool and lammed into him with a chiquot."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ugh, said Kate,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Primitive man. They rather grow on one. Perhaps I'm prejudiced in their favor, though. Even when I was at school I always preferred a licking to an imposition. By the way, you never showed me the butterflies you've collected here since you took them out of splints and pinned them in their case."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then come at once and admire,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mr. K. O'Neill"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Kate, I even kept it from George, she had said, and Kate had replied,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "George being Mr. Carter, I suppose?"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, you have got up, he said."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's good. Well, don't show a light whilst you dress, and keep under shelter. I must just wake Miss O'Neill before I go down."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You came for me first then, after all?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You little goose, of course I did. Wives first, employers next. Here, I must go, or the battle will be over before I'm down. The odds are those heroes are blazing away at nothing."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and then his gun"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Or in plainer English, the man had dozed with his hand round his gun lock to keep the damp from the priming; he had been struck by a nightmare and had pulled the trigger. He had aimed at nothing. His gun muzzle had been upright, and he"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The negro like-a some noise, eh, senhor?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What about yourself? asked Carter uncivilly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Haven't you been joining in? I suppose you're first cousin to these fellows, anyway."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, I beg pardon, said Carter."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I thought you were likely to share in the local revels."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, said the Portuguese thoughtfully,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I suppose I must count that an apology. Otherwise I should have shot you. Good-night, senhor."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And now, said he,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "In the first-a place I am not negro. I am European of blood-a as pure as your own, an' far-a-more ancient."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If the apology I gave you just now doesn't cover that, I'll apologize some more for calling you a nigger. Furthermore, I didn't know that you claimed to be a gentleman, not that gentility is any excuse for not carrying out one's job here on the Coast."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Senhor, you are handsome. And I agree with you that here in Africa we are all-a workmen, and must suffer if the work-a is not well done."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, said Carter impatiently,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Senhor, do you know of what-a I was dreaming?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Private affairs probably, but anyway of something immaterial."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Pardon, but I must tell-a you my dreaming. It was of a woman's life I dreamed."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I think you had better leave it at that. It sticks in my mind that the three Portuguese ladies in this factory at Mokki are all officially protected by their lawful husbands, and I don't want to hear any embarrassing confidences."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And may not a Portuguese gentleman, poor-a I grant you, but still of good blood, give-a his affection to a lady of another race?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I decline to hear another word on the matter. We will confine our dealings with one another entirely to details of business, if you please, Cascaes, and leave matters of sentiment alone. Here is your gun. You say you are a gentleman, and I believe you. That means you won't shoot me from behind, or when I'm not armed equally with yourself. If the necessity arrives for a turn-up on level terms, I'm your man. Good-night."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We are doing such a tremendous business, said Carter one day at the evening meal,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Tight,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And yet we've got at the very least £8,500 in kernels, palm oil, and high-grade rubber lying idle here. Moreover, we've tapped an unexpected vein of ivory. I thought at first that it was some small king's state reserve, some hoard he'd got buried, under the bed of a stream perhaps, which he wanted to realize on, and which would soon come to an end. But it's not that, it's new stuff that's been hunted within the last three years, and it's been diverted, I really believe, from the Congo market. It's a splendid line for us, but it will pinch out very promptly if we once stop buying. I verily believe these natives can telegraph a piece of commercial news half-way across Africa in the inside of a week."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Of course, we've got the firm's Miss K. O'Neill here on the spot, and hence the prosperity; but I wish we'd got our Miss K. for just half a day at the Liverpool end to diagnose that we're starving for a steamer. The fact is, that greedy old scoundrel Cappie Image-me-lad looks upon Mokki as his special private preserve, and he doesn't intend to see any of the other skippers picking up his cargo commission if he can avoid it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you blame him? said Kate."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't. But at the same time I'm afraid Mokki factory can't wait each time till Captain Image brings the _M'poso_ on her round trips from Liverpool. However, I sent a canoe off this morning with a long cable which may ease matters."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You sent off a canoe? I don't know how I shall get on without her crew."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, I remembered how shorthanded you are, Mr. Manager, but I've not piled more work onto you this time. You recollect that tall Haûsa merchant with the one eye who has been here for the last two days?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, Rotata."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I gave him the cable, and an order on Mr. Burgoyne for £15, to be paid on delivery. Will you O.K. the account?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I guess, said Carter shortly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why do you object to my working for myself, Mr. Carter?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Because I prefer to work for you. I'd work myself to the bone for you, if you'd let me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why should you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Because I--well, it's natural enough, isn't it? If you come to think of it, I am your paid employee."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Of course it is Laura that you are really working for."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course, he said."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, if you and Laura will excuse me, I'll go into the other room now and post up my books."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm sorry to interrupt further, he said,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why don't you shave in the morning, instead of carrying a chin like a besom all through the day? I suppose, as usual, you were going to weigh up those kernels to-morrow?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You are most indulgent, senhor."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I am nothing of the kind. Sufficient for the day is the work thereof, and the man that puts it off till to-morrow gets out of here. Like to hand in your resignation?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, senhor, no."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then go and weigh those kernels, one-time. Then come back here and make up your books. D'ye think I'm going to have my whole machinery of commerce held up because you want to go and shave, and oil your head, and put on clean whites and a crimson belly-band and otherwise make yourself fetching for the benefit of Miss O'Neill?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Miss-a O'Neill? said the Portuguese in surprise."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I do not care a banana-skin----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Here, don't try and fill me up, said Carter bluntly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And don't put on time. Take a lamp and go out and weigh those kernels, and see you don't set the shed on fire, and when you're through, and have posted your books, come out and fetch me. I'm going to smoke a cigar out in the open."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The dew-a is heavy. There is fever about."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Take your advice to the devil."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Which fever, said Cascaes,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I should have added, if you had-a not interrupted me--which fever I hope you will get."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's all right. I like you dagos better when you spit venom openly. Now, you hurry up and go through those kernels, and see you get the weights right."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": ""
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A man must play the game."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I could--not love--thee dear--so much--loved I--not hon--or more."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am going to marry Laura, he declared,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O, Effendi, I am close upon death, and it is hard to die far from one's own lands and people."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let's have a look at you, said Carter, in what he knew of the same tongue, eked out with Kroo and Okky. He scraped a damp and reluctant match."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Holy Christopher! What have you been doing to your thigh?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "As I marched along the road to here, a leopard sprang and seized me, but the men that were with me speared him, and so I escaped with my life. They made a litter, and on it carried me to this place. And here they left me in the hands of Allah, whilst they followed up their own private affairs."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, man, the wound's alive. Why didn't you have it dressed?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It was written that the wound should be as it is."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Rot. You stay here another ten minutes or so till I get the tackle, and then I will clean it out for you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Effendi, it is written that Allah sent the things that are in the wound, and with due submission I will not have them touched."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hum, said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There lives the Kaleef, the chief of the Faithful of Islam."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You've got it in once. Now, are you keeping yourself posted in the Sultan's--that is the Kaleef's latest readings of the Koran? You are not. I can see you have let yourself get thoroughly behind the times. What's your name?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ali ben Hossein."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, Ali, I know what's the matter with you spiritually. You've been thinking too much of the things of this life--fighting, trading and so on. You've spread your mat and faced Mecca, and said your daily prayer in a formal sort of way, but you've been neglecting the moolah. You have been lax in your attendance at mosque, and for a fiver you aren't half the man at the Koran you used to be."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Effendi is very wise."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am. I can't help it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He has hit upon this Believer's sin."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dead on the spot. So now let's get to the point. In your ignorance, you believe that Allah sent all those crawling horrors that are in your wound?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "For His own wise purposes He sent them. Allah can do no wrong."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You are mixing up theological facts. Allah can do no wrong. But what about Sheitan?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I spit upon his name, O Effendi,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hear now then the pronouncement of the Kaleef Abdul Hamed of I'Stamboul. The unclean things that haunt the wounds of the Faithful are no longer sent by Allah as a test of Faith. They are sent now by Sheitan as a torment to True Believers, and as an antidote, the Prophet, through the Kaleef, has sent a liquid of his own devising, of which by a happy chance I have a portion in the factory."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is it green in color?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Green as the skirts of the houris of Paradise,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then, said Ali ben Hossein simply,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not in my pocket, O Ali ben Hossein, for I am not a djinn. But there is a medicine chest up at the factory, and within it is a bottle of crystal, blue in color, in which are tabloids which bear the giaour name of perchloride of mercury. They and the aniline green may take a bit of finding, but presently when I've got a solution made, and tinted to a True Believer's taste, I will return here and work upon you that cure of which I am sure that the Kaleef Abdul would approve if he'd a thigh as bad as yours, and had ever heard of an antiseptic dressing. So see to it that you don't slip through the gates of Paradise whilst I am gone. D'you understand? The houris won't look twice at a Haûsa with a leg as worm-eaten as yours."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I think you are perfectly disgraceful, said she."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "At least you might have let me know what you were doing, so that I could have come to help part of the time."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I beg your pardon for not doing as you wished. But I didn't know that you were interested in niggers, if there was no chance of making a dividend out of them. I rather looked upon this as an out-of-office-hours job; as a piece of private amusement of my own, in fact, and so I did not dare to repeat it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, said Kate, seating herself beside the sick man,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I fit, said the Krooboy."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An' I got bottle of White man's medicine dat I pinch from dem Cappie Image. I give dem Carter a drink of him."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You will do nothing of the sort. Dem Cappie Image patent medicine plenty bad ju-ju for Mr. Carter. So you will do exactly as I ordered you. Ah, and here's Laura. Now, my dear, if you don't want the man to whom you're engaged to die before you marry him, you'd better look after him and his health very narrowly. There, get away out of this, the pair of you, and make up your silly quarrel, whatever it may be."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, Kate, George and I have no quarrel. Why, it was you----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you haven't a quarrel, my dear, invent one, if it's only for the amusement of making it up. I'm told it's one of the chief luxuries of an engagement. Now, please go, or you'll disturb Hossein. Hossein's the man who wants attention here, and I can't have you bothering about the place till he's better."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let us talk as traders, oh Effendi. Do not ask me to be the traitor who will make smooth the path for the invader. And for the present I bid you to consider this shortage in the supply of pink kola nuts. Now, the white kola nuts, which have not that dryness which is demanded by the palates of the Western Soudan, we can get from Lagos and the Coast factories in larger quantities than ever. But the growers declare the crop of pink nuts to be practically a failure this year, and therein I say they lie."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I am a merchant without merchandise, Effendi, and must needs be back about my affairs. If I do not gather them into my hands again another will."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'd stand you tick to the extent of a dozen loads of goods if I had 'em, said Carter cordially,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "May your tribe increase, Effendi. I have had too much at your hands already. But though no money may pass over what you have done, yet I ask you to accept a gift, that is a mere token."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Effendi, you are young, and that will bring you pleasure more than could be bought with ten quills of gold. Wear that, and your grief will fade."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Poof! said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I've no griefs."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O Effendi, my sickness was of the leg. Neither my eyes nor my ears were touched by the leopard, and since I lay here I have both seen and heard. There is a woman that I have watched, a woman with brown hair that has in it the glint of copper. She flaunts you now, as is the way of women with those they love; but she is the one you desire, and presently (having this charm) you will take her to wife. Indeed, she will come to your house without purchase and of free will."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You mistake, said Carter with a sigh."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It is the black-haired one that I am contracted to marry."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You may take her as the lesser wife, but I know who will rule your harem, Effendi."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You polygamous old scoundrel! I beg your pardon, ben Hossein, but you're on the wrong tack, and so please let us change the subject. This charm, this duck, is made of what we call tin-stone. Does it come from Haûsaland?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, Effendi. It is found nearer to here than the Haûsa country. There is a great island of red twisted stone that rears itself up out of the bush, and this stone that the duck is made of lies amongst it. There is no value in the charm as a stone, but only value in its shape, which is that of a duck as you see, Effendi. Half the twisted mountain is made of that stone, and the river that runs along its base at times eats into it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How far is it from here?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Twelve--no, thirteen marches. Look, I will spread this sand upon the floor and draw you the roads.... But the country is evil, Effendi, and though you go there and spend a lifetime in search, yet will you not find another stone formed like a duck. To get this, my grandfather sent a hundred slaves who raked amongst the screes for a year."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "This is tin-ore, said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wish, said ben Hossein gravely,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, this stone and this tale must go to Kate,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I have just de-coded it, she cried exultingly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They have accepted my terms."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wish you would de-code the 'they.'"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The German firm that owned Mokki before we came."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What, the people you bought it from?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But why on earth sell it back to them?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Because, my dear Mr. Carter, they are going to give me £9,000 for the produce we have collected, and another £8,000 for the fort and the good-will of the business. How's that? £17,000 cash against a £1,500 outlay in three months. That's better than staying out here in West Africa."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't wonder you're exultant. I suppose no other girl on earth ever made a coup like that. And as for us here at the factory, that means our occupation's gone?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, I hope you'll go back to Malla-Nulla, where you were, and work for us there."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I think not. As you're going home, and I cannot be of any immediate use to O'Neill and Craven, I prefer to leave the firm's employ if you'll let me?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We shall be really sorry to lose you. But perhaps you have something better in view?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To tell the truth, I have. And it strikes me if I'm to make a fortune, I must look out for it myself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I quite agree with you, said Kate."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What was that you were going to show me? The thing you put in your pocket, I mean?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A keepsake that was given me. It's a charm, a ju-ju that will bring fortune to somebody, and I was going to give it to you. But on your own recommendation I shall keep it for myself."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You are quite right. It will be safer for us to go our own several ways from here."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is she white?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "White, clean through,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then who are her people?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That I shall not tell even you. Her mother is dead. Her father has gone under. He was a very clever man once, though I must say he used to be more high and mighty than I cared about on the rare occasions that I met him. But, as I say, he's gone under, hopelessly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And presently, said Mrs. Craven,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, he won't. I've fixed that. He'll never claim her again. To start with he doesn't know if she's in England, or Canada, or Grand Canary. I even changed the name he called her by. I called her Kate from the day I left him, and had her christened by that name in Sierra Leone on the off chance she hadn't been christened before. And to go on with, he gave me his word of honor that if I took her away, he'd never embarrass me by inquiring for her again. You see, he was living as a native, and the child was running about with the other pickaninnies in the village, and I guess I made him pretty well ashamed of himself by what I said. The mother's dead, you know."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Poof, said Mrs. Craven,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ninety-nine beach combers out of a hundred will lie as soon as look at you, Godfrey owned."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This one is the exception. He will keep his word, at any rate on this matter. He's just as proud as a king."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Between drinks,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He's more objectionably proud drunk than sober. He always quotes Latin at one when he's full, and then says, 'Ah, but you've not been to school anywhere, so you'll not understand that.' You needn't be frightened he'll call here, Jane. Just remember I'm a man with a taste for ease myself. If I'd thought there was the smallest chance of being bothered with him, I shouldn't have saddled myself with the kid."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, said Mrs. Craven,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Orphanage, h'm. You see, Jane, I was thinking we might keep her ourselves. I am sure we could look after her."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I object to the word 'we,'"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, I suppose most of the work would fall on your shoulders."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am sure of it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come along, old lady, don't you think you can manage it? Kitty isn't a bad sort of kid. Y'know, I saw a goodish deal of her on the steamer coming home."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I thought you gave her in charge of a steward?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I never told you that."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You see, I know your little ways--'Steward, here's a girl for you. If you nursery-maid the kid nicely till we get to Liverpool, and don't let me see more of her than I want, and don't let her come in and prattle when I'm playing whist with Captain Image, there'll be another quid for you when we land. After that my sister will take her over, and she won't want a tip at all.'"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "H'm, said Godfrey,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wouldn't be seen with one. I'll take a brown cloth gown, please."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Shall I order it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, you can pay the bill."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Right-o. Then you will take Kitty and bring her up here?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You stupid goose, said Mrs. Craven,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I intended that from the moment I saw her. Cook's out buying her a cot this minute."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let me see, what's your name?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Kate O'Neill, as a matter of course. She had called Mrs. Craven, Aunt Jane, and her brother Uncle Godfrey from the first, and after that juvenile party she was introduced as"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Go and invite some one to come in and let's make up a rubber of whist."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sell it, said Mrs. Craven,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'd rather run it myself,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Rubbish, said her aunt;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If you want plain facts, aunt, I don't see why anyone should give sixpence for it, and if we tried to wind it up, it would mean bankruptcy. Some of the money's a very long way out."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Your poor Uncle Godfrey intended to leave you comfortably off, I know."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And I'm pleased to think he died believing he had done so. They had the quaintest way of keeping books down at Water Street. Cutting notches on a tally-stick was nothing to some of their dodges. They hadn't struck a proper balance sheet for years, and both Uncle Godfrey and Mr. Crewdson really and honestly imagined that the firm was flourishing."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You sell,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not I, aunt. Uncle Godfrey left me the concern believing it to be a small fortune for me, and a fortune I'm going to make out of it, and not a small one, either."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I don't believe in business women, said Mrs. Craven severely."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'd rather see a womanly woman."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My dear, said Kate,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I am not absolutely certain that I wish to be married just yet, she told him,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You are exquisite in your womanliness, as you are exquisite in everything else, he had replied."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I am grateful for any bone of comfort you throw me, Kitty dear."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, if you had abused me for my indecision, and said you would either be engaged or not engaged, I believe I'd have married you out of hand if you'd wanted me. But you didn't seem able to clinch things, and so anyhow you're pigeon-holed for the present. I'm glad I made you keep our little matter secret."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Certainly not, said this intangible force."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Mr. Austin is a man, and if he cares to be a man and gossip, why let him. But a woman by reason of her sex is not called upon to say more than she needs."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hullo, Henry, said Miss O'Neill,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Is that all you have to say to me, Kitty? I've been just hungry all the time to see you again. I don't think a single hour of a single day has passed but what I have thought of you, and where you were, and what you were doing."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, Henry, that's more than I could say. Here, wait till I catch that porter's eye. He's taking my cabin trunk to the wrong heap. About what was in my head between here and the Coast, I'll not say, but once out there, I'll tell you frankly I gave little enough thought to anything except Coast interests. The first place I went ashore at after Sierra Leone was our own factory at Smooth, and they'd had a fight there which only ended up when our whistle blew. The clearing between the factory buildings and the forest was full of dead men. I found out that no fewer than 800 Okky savages had attacked the place, and they were all held off by one of our clerks with a couple of Winchesters, and a half-caste girl who loaded for him. It sounds like a tale out of a book, and you needn't believe it unless you like; I don't think I should believe it unless I had seen things for myself, but I did see the men who had been actually shot when they tried to rush the place, and I can guarantee the truth of the story."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't tell me there's a romance between you and your clerk."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There wasn't room for one. He was engaged to the heroine already, and was as consistently rude to me as he knew how. But I don't mind telling you he was a magnificent fellow. He was a gentleman, too, which is rather a rare thing to find on the Coast. But you're letting me do all the talk. You haven't told me about yourself. What have you been doing?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The usual work of a busy solicitor; getting new clients, and sticking to the old ones. I can report good, steady success, Kitty. We can start pretty comfortably."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There, look, Henry, stop that porter. He's taking a case of mine to the wrong cab. Thanks, I wouldn't have lost that case for a king's ransom."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Butterflies?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, a native war horn in ivory."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, they're fairly common."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, but a friend gave me this, and I want to keep it. There, I think that's the lot. Good-by, Henry. You'll come and see me at Princes' Park when I'm settled down again?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, Kitty, can't I drive out with you now? I'd so looked forward to driving back with you. There's plenty of room in the cab."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, said Kate,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'd rather you went home now, and thought over again what I'm like now that I've come back to England with a West Coast flavor. I know you'll disapprove of me as a possible wife, but I do hope you'll see your way of keeping me on the list of your friends. Nobody knows you ever suggested anything more, unless you have told them, and I don't see why they should know. But I'm more than ever convinced that I'm not the girl to make you the wife you deserve. Don't answer me now, there's a nice boy. Just go to the club and have a good dinner, and ring me up some time this evening and say you thoroughly agree with me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, my dear, said she,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, Aunt, I think you have got the pith of it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you won't tell, you won't. But you must remember, Kitty dear, I have known you and nursed you ever since you were a tiny child, and you can't change--as you have done--without my noticing it. Now, this Mr. Carter----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, I did forget to tell you that he's got frightfully red hair."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You say he's engaged to Laura Slade?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oppressively so."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But is he going to marry her?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How can I tell, Aunt?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who is he going to marry, Kitty dear?"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It isn't that, George."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, as Cascaes is the only alternative, I didn't suppose it was. Come now, out with it, what's the trouble? I suppose you're just going to be a woman and tell me it's my fault? I don't agree with you. I'm the same me as always was--red hair, large feet, and as big an appetite as the Coast will allow."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's Kate, George."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You must let me refer to her as Miss O'Neill, said Carter dryly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You see, she's my employer--or was--and we're naturally not on intimate terms-- Well, what's Miss O'Neill got to do with my marrying you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She's always been opposed to it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Twaddle! Now, look here, my dear, you've been nervy and upset ever since that bit of a scrap at Smooth River. Now, haven't you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I suppose I have."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm sure of it. And it's not surprising. That was a pretty tough time for any girl to go through. Well, as I've told you, I've got my nose onto a fortune that's tucked away up in the bush, and I'm going to look for it. In the meanwhile, as I managed to screw sixty golden sovereigns out of that greedy old Balgarnie for curios that he'll sell for at least a hundred and forty, there's just that amount of cash to take you on a jaunt to Grand Canary for rose growing."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Rose growing?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To put color in your cheeks, then, you pale young person."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But I couldn't take the money from you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And pray who has a greater right to take care of you, and prescribe what's best for you, and look after you generally? D'you think I want to marry a wife who isn't in the pink of condition?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I like to look nice for you, dear, but I couldn't take that money from you now of all times."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How do you mean?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When you are just going off on some desperate expedition into the bush, and want every penny that can be scraped together."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There you go, wanting to lead me into temptation. Wanting me to take money in my pocket to buy (presumably) kid gloves and fire-escapes in the shops of the bush villages, and spend my nights in local music halls. Fie on you that will one of these days have to turn into a thrifty wife! I shall avoid these temptations. I shall travel as unostentatiously as possible, and so ensure getting through. I shall take with me White-Man's-Trouble only, if the beggar will condescend to go and live on native chop, for the best of all possible reasons that it wouldn't be possible to take a lot of carriers. Can't you see, my dear, that the choice lies between a three-thousand-pound expedition, with carriers, and all the rest of it, and going quietly, and being too obviously poor to rob?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I suppose there is something in that. Father went quietly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Of course he did, and so shall I. Some day, if things pan out as I hope, I may march up country at the tail end of a brass band, and do the thing in style; but not to-morrow, thank you. So if you won't take charge of our superfluous £60 and decorate Grand Canary with it, I'm hanged if I don't dash it amongst the factory boys here, and have one flaring jamboree before we part company."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, George, you are good!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't you fret about my goodness, old lady. I'm a pretty bad fellow at the bottom, only I try and keep my worst points out of your sight. Man has to, you know, with the girl he's engaged to. It's only playing the game. Now, you let me go, and I'll just slip across to the _Frau_ and blarney her old Dutch skipper into giving you the best room he's got to fight the cockroaches in."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm tough, he told himself,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Carter, said his servant,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I no fit for lib for bush. I got 'nother palaver too-much-important here at factory. Dem headman of factory boys say to me, 'Sar, you been stand-by-at-crane boy on steamah? An' I say, 'Sar, I plenty-much-too-good educate.' And he say to me, 'Sar, you fit for lib here an' take dem job of second headman?' An' I say to him, 'Sar, I fit.' O Carter, if I lib for bush with you, an' let Okky-men spear me, an' leopards chop me, I dam fool."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're a cheerful animal. If you think you are more likely to get an archbishopric by staying here, by all means stay. Hope you'll like the Dutchmen when they come."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O Carter, dem Dutchman all-e-same bush-Englishmen?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You've got it in once. I've no doubt they're a most degraded lot."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dem Dutchman he no have as much savvy as an Englishman?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nowhere near. They wouldn't have chucked up the factory in the first instance if they had, and in the second no Englishman would have bought it back again at such an absurd figure as they were fools enough to pay Missy Kate."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O Carter?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I fit for steal small-small sometimes from Englishmen?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I can guarantee that, you scamp."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then, said White-Man's-Trouble triumphantly,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I fit for steal plenty-much-big from Dutchman, an' he no savvy."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You'll taste abundance of chiquot, my lad."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I take chiquot from Englishman, not from bush-Englishman. If he flog me with chiquot, I put ju-ju on him-- He picked up an empty bottle and handled it thoughtfully."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ju-ju, if dem Dutchmen give me chiquot."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of the powdered-glass variety in his morning sausage, said Carter thoughtfully."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, it would be no use warning the poor devils, because, in the first place, they wouldn't believe me, and in the second they'd get it all the same. I guess these new colonizers must worry out the methods of dealing with the natives for themselves, as their betters did before them. And for myself, I fancy a knapsack will be the wear. Thank the Lord, I've tramped a good many hundred miles with one before."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Laura is--well, what you know. Laura's got a lick of the tar brush. Laura is probably the identical person a certain reverend gentleman in Upper Wharfedale especially warned you against. Laura may pass muster in Grand Canary, but she won't do further North. Fancy Laura in Wharfedale!"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Carter, O Carter!"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I no fit for lib at dem factory an' know you carry dem load in dem dam-fool way,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dem, said White-Man's-Trouble, pointing to the three great bowls,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Quack-quack dug?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, bow-wow dug."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ugh! said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll leave these rich dainties to you and His Nibs there. Let me have a go at the stewed fowl. Great Christopher! No wonder rubber's so hard to collect in this country when they use up so much to make legs for their chickens. Well, thank heaven for sound teeth and a tough inside!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I tell dem headman, said the Krooboy when they had started their day's march,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My dear Trouble, your powers of diplomacy are only equalled by your personal appearance. Keep it up. If your eloquence can carry us through the country on the free hotel list it will save a lot of trouble both for us and for everybody else we come near. I like to think of myself as an adventurous knight exploring the black heart of Africa, but I suppose in the States they'd call us a pair of hoboes, and set the watch-dogs at us-- Gee! Look at that!"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, that's all right, said Carter irritably."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No one wants to ram his head into a scrap less than I do. But where the deuce can we go to? There's been no single branch to this road we've come along, and the bush on each side is about the thickest in Africa. Nothing short of a regiment of men with matchets would make a path through it anywhere. Going back to that last village means getting skewered. All the way along I've been wondering how on earth we got out of it without having at least ten spears rammed into each of us."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Carter, I no fit to go get mixed in dem fight palaver."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're so beastly unoriginal. Why go on repeating the same thing? I'd like further to point out that we've not had a bite to eat for twenty-four hours, and I personally can't go on living on my own fat without inconvenience, as you seem to do."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No savvy."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, to translate, I say I plenty-much fit for chop."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Me, too,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then, as there is only starvation and other unpleasant things behind, I'm going ahead to prospect. Gee! There's somebody on this side with a rifle. And, by Christopher, there's another rifle in the village shooting back!"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, Mr. Carter, I congratulate you on keeping your nerve in spite of the climate."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gee! said Carter under his breath."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's old Swizzle-Stick Smith."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I beg your pardon?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I said I'm sure that's Mr. Smith."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "May I ask what you are doing here? Thrown up your commission by any chance?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Exactly that."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "On your own?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, sir, starvation's my master at present."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, I beg pardon. Go into the mess and order what you'll have. Or look here, I've shot my man, so I'm free for the moment, and I'll come with you. Whiskey we're out of, but I can recommend gin and soda. We looted a sparklet machine, by the way, from the Frenchman."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come to think of it, that's more healthy for you than soda, Mr. Carter. So you're not up here on O'Neill and Craven's service, you tell me?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No; handed in my papers, sir. I'm passing through here on urgent private affairs."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ah, then in that case, Mr. Carter, I shall have to hear more of your projects before I can give you permission to pass through my territory."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Your territory? Oh, I remember. You've been buying up rubber lands, of course, for the firm."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "As a point of fact, I have not been worrying about the firm very lately. When I said 'my territory,' I meant exactly that, neither more nor less. Later I may turn it over to British protection. But recently it was no man's land, and as that infernal blackguard, the King of Okky, was after it, I seized it for myself."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hear, hear, said Carter."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "As the King of Okky was once indecently keen on adding my head to his private collection, I can never be really fond of that man, somehow."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Confound your head, sir! That had nothing to do with it. I didn't quarrel with the man for following out his ordinary African methods. I'm going for him for letting in the French."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What on earth have the French to do with it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Exactly what they had to do with all the British West African colonies. We hold a seaboard, and when the men on the spot try to consolidate an influence in the hinterland, our Foreign Office promptly truckles to the Anti-British party at home and tells them to drop it. The Anti-British party says, 'Oh no, we mustn't make a sphere of influence there. The Germans want it, or the French have set their minds on it, or why shouldn't poor dear Portugal have a chance there? But whatever you do, don't give it to nasty, greedy Great Britain.' And unless the hand of the Foreign Office is absolutely forced, they always do as the Anti-Britishers ask. You see the Anti-British party is noisy and hysterical, and always shrieking that it can command countless votes."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What a beastly shame!"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But here now, thank the Lord, I personally am unofficial, and I'm doing exactly what I know to be best without fear or favor of anybody."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How far does your territory extend, sir?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "As far as I can make it,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Are you going to let it be developed by the white man?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Assuredly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then, said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Frenchman's down with fever. I was exchanging shots with a soldier of fortune who is, I believe, an old acquaintance of yours. Kwaka his name is."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Great Christopher! what a small place West Africa is. Old Kallee sent Kwaka down to borrow my head for his collection, and after the way I bamboozled that man I shouldn't have been surprised if he'd been struck off the Okky army list. Did you--er--make a clean job of him?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Winged only, I think. He kept very well to cover."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You were both blazing away for long enough."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, chuckled Mr. Smith,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm afraid he hardly had a fair chance at me. You see, I'd a boy with a trade gun lying under a log a dozen yards to my right, and I'd a string from my foot to his trigger. When I loosed off the Winchester I pulled the other gun too, and Kwaka shot for the smoke every time, and made very good practice of it. That log would be worth mining for lead."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When you take the place what shall you do with the Frenchman?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just the same that he would do with me, said the old man grimly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now suppose we change the subject. The bush telegraphs have been persistently talking about a white woman who's been upsetting the face of Africa, especially about our factories. Heard anything of her?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Of course I've heard. In fact, she's why I'm here. She's Miss Kate O'Neill."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Kate O'Neill, you say? She'd be about twenty--no, twenty-three years old?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm a bad judge, but I daresay she'd be about that. Why, do you know her, sir?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "As I have not been to England for five-and-twenty years, is it likely? You said she was English, I think?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "As a point of fact, I did not, though presumably she is English. She was not the late Godfrey O'Neill's real relative. She was adopted, so I heard. But he left her the business for all that, and she's making it hum. She's marvellously able. But of course you have seen for yourself more of her efforts than I have, sir."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I have seen them?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm afraid you made the same mistake that everybody else made, from Slade and old Image. She is the K. O'Neill of the kindly-buck-up-and-get-it-done letters. She is the Mr. K. that you chaffed me about at Malla-Nulla for admiring so much as a business man."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My God! said Swizzle-Stick Smith, and sat back limply against the wall of the hut, and then"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My God!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Did you, he ventured,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I did, Mr. Carter. Her mother--she--she died. Her father went under. He had a pretty trying time of it first, but when the pinch came he went under most thoroughly. Godfrey O'Neill, good fellow that he was, took the child then, and so she got her chance, and, thank heaven, she's used it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And is the father alive now?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How the devil should I know? Do you think I keep track of all the failures in Africa? You seem very interested in this young woman yourself. May I ask if you've any aspirations in that direction?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you mean have I any wish to marry her, I can answer that best by telling you that I'm engaged to marry Laura Slade."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ah, I see. Well, Mr. Carter, we will drop the subject, which is a painful one to me for many reasons. Let us get on to your personal schemes. In what way can I forward them?"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Carter, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She didn't. Those are my words of wisdom you've got hold of. Still I admit the sentiments are Miss O'Neill's. But the main thing is, Trouble, that rubber takes capital and labor to handle, and this firm's short of both at the moment. We'll leave rubber to Miss O'Neill for the present."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Carter, dem Missy Kate, she no fit for love you now?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She no fit, said Carter, with a sigh,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ghosts,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I hope so, said Carter."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They'd give us local news, anyway, and might be amusing to talk to. But I never met ghosts outside a story-book, and I'm afraid there'll be none here. I wonder who lived on this spot? Stone house, with limed walls three feet six thick, and a flat cement roof. Inside area--phew! it smells musty--twenty feet by twelve. No, by Christopher! there's another room on beyond. Storeroom that--oh, beg pardon, Mr. Snake. My mistake. Good-afternoon!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "When in doubt as to the authorship of any West African monument, one always puts it down to the early Portuguese, Carter mused,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This isn't a mine, Carter shouted exultantly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dem stones with yellow glass on him worth money?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Heaps."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "In Liverpool?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, say Swansea or Cardiff; practically the same thing."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No worth money here?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'd sell you a ton for a fill of tobacco."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How you get it to coast? You no fit to pay carriers."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "By water, my pagan friend. We make steamah lib for here."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Steamah no fit, said the Krooboy, and spat contemptuously into the yellow stream."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dem cappies no savvy way here. Dem ribber no savvy way to Coast."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's a bit beyond my linguistic powers. You must translate some more."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dem ribber, the Krooboy explained patiently,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then where the deuce does it run to? Does a Ju-ju drink it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ju-ju no fit for touch dem ribber, said White-Man's-Trouble, taking the question literally."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But dem ribber run into dem squidge-squidge, an' lib for die!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Runs into a swamp and gets lost! My great Christopher, the odds are you're right. But why in the name of thunder didn't you tell me that before?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I no savvy, said the Krooboy simply,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You've got a very white inside to you,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O Carter, I no fit for white inside. I no ju-ju boy. I dam common Krooboy."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You lazy hounds, said the Englishman to himself,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I should like to set you to shoveling ore all day, and signing checks all night for your women's bonnet bills. But then, he reminded himself with a sigh,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Carter, said he,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "said the Krooboy, with a whimper and a shudder--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't try and work up my feelings over the post-mortem, because you can't do it. Once dead, what happens to my vile corpse doesn't interest me. But I don't intend to peg out yet, especially at the hands of a pack of ignorant cannibals like these. Observe, Trouble. You have seen me practise ju-ju already?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I fit."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And you have been my assistant in the black art?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I fit."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well and good. Then to-morrow we will weave infernal charms over this pleasing spot, till no mere black man, be he cannibal or be he simple fisherman, will dare to press his sacrilegious toes upon it."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But each morning we must have an offering of fresh-caught fish, White-Man's-Trouble proclaimed,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Carter, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I no fit for cook dem food when I ju-ju man. We take with us two-three, all-e-same slaves, to be house-boy an' do dem work."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, said Carter shortly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why you no fit?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I know what you're after, and I've got my reasons, though you wouldn't appreciate them. However, I suppose I must invent something that will appeal to you. If dem bushmen lib for house with us they soon see we no real ju-ju men, an' they tell their friends. Then their friends come up some dark night and chop us. Savvy?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O Carter, said White-Man's-Trouble,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Curse you, if you've given her a fortune you've got to give me one too, or I'll take it in spite of you!"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why should we go against our nature? We Portuguese--in the days when we lived, who speak to you now--we were seamen and rivermen always. So we built great flat boats and swam our goods down the rivers."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Christopher! said the Englishman,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dem bushmen savvy nothing,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wish, said Carter,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, but look here, said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I can't do this. It means I should be a slave-holder, neither more nor less. Besides, with you seven great lumps sitting there, the raft's awash. If I take you I shall have to jettison some of my tin-stone."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I won't have it, said he."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Trouble, drive them ashore."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dem bushmen very uneducate. Dey say if you no take 'em dey lib for die. Dem big black fellow there wid one ear, he say if you no take him, he walk into dem ribber an' be crocodile chop."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They'll do it, too, confound them,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, he commented,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I always thought that Swizzle-Stick Smith was a filthy old ruffian, but at his worst he looks a prince to me now. That I suppose is where gray has the pull over ginger."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' chop no lib,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, find some, Carter snapped."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Make spears, and stab the fish up out of the mud if you can't catch them with nets or hooks. Only see that there's a meal ready for me when I get back, or I'll lam into you with that chiquot you're so fond of using."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Can you see what that is?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It is just a man on a branch, said that savage, with cheerful indifference."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Presently the crocodiles will chop him. Shall we go back now, Effendi, to the raft?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, my callous friend. We'll investigate the person in the tree first. Full speed ahead!"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That man, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I had already recognized the gentleman, and I fancy he's far more my enemy than yours, but I'm going to pull him out of this mess for all that, and give him a good level start again on dry land."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I fit for gin,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I bet you are, Carter agreed."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But unfortunately the bar on this packet's closed for want of supplies just at the moment. Try a sup of the local ditch-water out of the baler."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I have not drunk water since I became a King, said he."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Carter, do not turn up stream. I have men at a village down yonder."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't doubt it. But having saved your skin, King, I've my own to think of now."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Stop that, said Carter sharply,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O Carter, said Kallee, speaking in Okky,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Here the King screwed round his fat neck and eyed Carter over his shoulder--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O Carter, do you think it strange that I should have wanted a head such as yours?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You would not tell me this now if you still wanted that head."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O Carter, he said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Are my Krooboy and the fishers included in the treaty?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I could give you a better servant than White-Man's-Trouble, and better paddlers than those fishermen. But if they please you, they shall remain alive and well treated. Paddle now quickly down stream to the village, O Carter, and we will drink Krug champagne till a goat is slain and chop prepared."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Carter, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She left for Las Palmas in the _Frau Pobst_ certainly. But I don't know where she is staying."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Teach-palaver house, said the King placidly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She was at school once at a convent on the Telde road."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She lib for there now."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I say, King, how the deuce do you know that?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Savvy plenty funny things,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Carter, said he,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "When that stone is taken to my country they heat it in a furnace with other things, and a white metal runs out."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Okky-man no fit for make him?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, the job's too complicated."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dem stone worth lot o' money, or you no fit for carry small-small load all dem way to coast. And a whole hill of dem stone lib far up ribber. So dem hill worth plenty-much lot o' money."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There goes my pile, thought Carter bitterly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The greedy old ruffian's going to hook it for himself."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dem Kate, she fit for be O'Neill and Craven now?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I suppose you may say she is."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Smith an' Slade all-e-same work-boy for O'Neill and Craven?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you like to put it that way."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good. And you, went on this well-informed monarch, wagging a fat forefinger,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Carter, you fit for save my life dis day. If you no come wid dem canoe, I lib for be crocodile chop this minute. So I do not take your red--I do not make you lib for die as I say dis morning, but I fit for make you glad. Dem Dutchmen hold dem factory now at Mokki?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They do."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then I send my war-boys in at back an' stop roads. But I take ju-ju off roads to dem O'Neill and Craven factories at Smooth, an' Monk, and Malla-Nulla."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's very good of you, I'm sure."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then dem Kate she love you much when she find dem factory once more do trade."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm afraid, King, it would take a lot more than that to make Kate feel attached to me. You see, I'm no longer in O'Neill and Craven's service. I chucked it when she sold Mokki, and I've been on my own ever since."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Den I no fit for open dem roads. So I make you dash another way. I send you for Coast in big canoe of sixty paddles."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "With White-Man's-Trouble?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wid your boy, an' your cargo. I send you in three days' time six more canoes of sixty paddles, full of dem stone you wish. I dash you dem hill of stone where you set up dem dam ju-ju boo-paa-bumm. I tell dem men who lib for ribber banks that you be free for come an' go on all my country while I lib for King; an' if any man he hurt you, I take dem man an' I nail him by hands an' feet to a tree!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Do you mean that?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When I say to a man you lib for die, he die. When I say 'I let you lib,' then he lib. When I say to a man, 'I make you dash,' he get dem dash, even though I have to send my war-boys to take it from somebody other to give it him. O Carter, I lib for be real King."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You mean you've given me a fortune in return for the small thing I did for you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My life, said the King dryly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "--he patted his rotundity--"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When I lib back for Okky City, the King said once,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Certainly, King, if you'll name a date when you haven't got a custom on."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dem English no fit for like dem custom-palaver?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They don't, one little bit."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "For why?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gets on their nerves."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dem English King, he send his war-boys if I make dem custom-palaver more?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's the common topic of conversation down the Coast as to when England will send an expedition to cut you up."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Because I stop dem roads an' spoil trade to factories?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Pooh, King! You know precious little about the British Government. You may spoil all the trade in Africa if you like, you may even cut up half a dozen factory agents or so, and the British Government won't care a little hang. But if you will go on in your simple way crucifying slaves, and carving up your own subjects, why, then, it's only a question of time before they'll pull you off your perch and send you into an inexpensive exile in St. Helena."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dem Swizzle-Stick Smith he say same thing."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's so obvious."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But he want me to let him hand dem Okky country over to England, so I say I pull his skin off if I catch him again. What you want for yo'self?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Do you mean what do I stand to make out of the deal? Well, not much beyond the satisfaction of keeping your crucifixion tree in a more sanitary state. With the mining right you have given me, I shall be a rich man."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But if dem English took Okky country?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why, they'd tax the mine, and they'd clap on regulations, till they made a very fine hole in the profits."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say dem again."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O Carter, he asked,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And dey no have trade guns? All Winchesters?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't know what the present regulation pump-gun is called, but we'll say it's like the Winchester, only plenty-too-much better."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I believe you speak for true about dem custom. Three days ago you no care if I lib or die?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I may as well be frank, and say I should have preferred you dead."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There are many like that. But now?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now I prefer you alive and King of Okky."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dat is what I thought, an' so I believe you say true when you tell me what you say about dem customs. I do not see why Okky customs should make dem English king fit for send his war-boys. But I no fit for want 'em."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So you fit for stop dem customs?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I fit,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "As will be seen by the two interviews which appear in our news columns, the information on these points did not come from Mr. Carter himself. Mr. Carter is that man so rare to find in these pushing days, a man who does not care one jot for anything the press can do towards his own self-advancement, a man, moreover, who does not mind saying so in strong, rude Anglo-Saxon. But fortunately we have another mine of information more easily tapped. The sensational rise into a new prosperity of the old West African firm of O'Neill and Craven has been one of the features of the year's finance, and it is now an open secret that the sole partner and manager of the 'firm' is a young, attractive, and unmarried lady. This Miss Kate O'Neill has so far evaded the interviewer, but on the Okky topic she has volunteered the fullest information. It is to her that we are indebted for our description of Mr. Carter and his great achievement."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We wish, wrote this sentimental journalist,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Did you say that, Kate, or is it one of the fellow's impudent inventions?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, I told him that with the rest just to--well, to quiet him. He seemed to think I was very interested in Mr. Carter."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And I suppose suggested you were in love with him?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, he didn't put it exactly like that, said Kate thoughtfully."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He was a very dashing young man, and rather gave me the idea that he wanted to see if the coast was clear for himself."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I see. And so you told him about the engagement between Mr. Carter and Laura, just to encourage him?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I suppose so. He really was very amusing and pushing. He wanted me to go out to lunch with him there and then."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Kate, are you going to let Mr. Carter marry Laura?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My dear Aunt Jane, what an extraordinary question! What possible influence can I have over either of them? I offered them both a wedding present, and asked them each what they would like. Could I go further than that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And each of them, suggested the old lady,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Look here, Aunt, what are you driving at?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am looking."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, speak, you irritating old person."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My dear, I am waiting for you to look back at me. You have carefully avoided meeting my eye ever since I showed you the paper."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You will go your own way, I know, Kitty dear. You are very capable, and very clever, and that has naturally made you very self-reliant. You have shown yourself so wonderfully successful over your business matters that I shouldn't dream of advising you there. But do you ever bring up into mind that there is something more in life than mere financial success?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Of course I do, Aunt. But I suppose I am different from the other girls. They look forward to their domestic pleasures. I have made myself other interests."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You are not at all abnormal in that way. You are the most entirely human person I ever saw. And to prove it, I'll just instance to you the way you've fallen in love with George Carter."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I refuse to admit it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Even to me, Kitty?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Even to myself. I like the man, and there it must end. He is engaged elsewhere, and if you call me human, you must allow me pride. I run after no man, nor do I lure any man away from another girl who has been my friend, whatever my inclinations may be. And now, if you please, we will drop that subject and talk of rubber. Our third company was subscribed once and a half times over by lunch time to-day, and we've closed the lists. How's that for a real solid triumph?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do the profits on that bring up your score to the million you arrived at?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh no, no. But they will help it along very nicely."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When you get a million will you stop?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "When I get my million, which, mark you, Aunt, is more than any girl of my age has ever done, why, then, I shall start to make my second. It's a most fascinating amusement."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But it doesn't make you happy. You are no better for it. You can't spend it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My dear Aunt, where have your eyes been? Haven't you seen my clothes since I came back from the Coast? Why, I never knew what it was to dress before. I'm seriously thinking I shall have to start a maid to look after me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My dear, you've a knack of carrying clothes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That I learned from you, you extremely smart person."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, you got the knack somewhere, and you always were nicely turned out. Now I know your wardrobe as well as you do yourself, and, let me see --Mrs. Craven took a pencil from her chatelaine, and made calculations on the edge of a newspaper--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Since you came back to England you've not spent, at a liberal estimate, above two hundred and twenty-seven pounds ten on your own adornment."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I give in to you, Aunt. I quite believe you know my wardrobe better than I do myself. Well, perhaps I shall buy pearls, then. I never had one, but I believe I'm prepared to adore a necklace of big, smooth, delicately graded pearls, with shimmery skins, and a fat, pear-shaped black pearl drop to dangle below it. Yes, that's the real reason I'm making money, Aunt--to buy and wear great ropes of pearls. Or, who knows, I may have a fancy for a peer. Now, with a million, I'm told one can buy for marrying purposes a really fine specimen of peer."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There are moments, said Mrs. Craven sharply,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you want to smack me and put me to bed?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've done it many a time when you've been in this mood."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Can you see the black dog on my shoulder?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Larger than ever. Kate, you should try and control yourself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, be just, Aunt. I didn't lie down on the floor and kick or do anything like that."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, thanks to me you can keep your temper under more decent control now. Now, don't you kiss me, and think I'm a silly old woman, and try to get round me that way--I know exactly how you're feeling. Oh, you'd lead any man a dance who married you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm certain I should, said Kate cheerfully,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I want a place where I can type a letter, Kate had said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Miss Kate's room,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Though you cannot see your way to be my husband, she had said to him lightly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Let's call it 'friend,' Kate,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Carter, Carter, Carter!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Carter, Carter, and then got unpleasantly familiar, and began to murmur:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "George."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "At any rate, she said,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "So you're on the beach, are you, said he, looking Carter up and down with vast disapproval."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I must say you look it. I've seen old Swizzle-Stick Smith come down after a jaunt in the bush and I thought he couldn't be beat for general shagginess and rags. But you give him points. What did Miss Kate bounce you for?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I believe I resigned."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Same thing. And now you've come to ask me to take you home as a distressed British subject, I suppose. Well, Carter-me-lad, a deck passage is your whack according to consular understanding, but you've sat in my chart house and you've sent me cargo, and so I'm going to put my hand in my own breeches pocket and take you home in the second class. And I tell you what: Chips and the bo's'n have got a shop in the foc's'le that I'm not supposed to know about, and if you care to go in there and get enough rig out to see you home, I'll foot the bill."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're very good----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know I am. It puts me about five weeks further off that hen farm outside Cardiff that I want to retire onto, being good like this. There, run away out of this chart house, me-lad, and tell the chief steward to give you a square blow-out of white-man's chop one-time. I'm sure you need it. I never saw a man with so much of the lard stewed off him."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Will you let me slip a word in? I've cargo for you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What! You!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm afraid you won't hook much commission out of it, Cappie, as you'll have to take it at ballast rates."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Catch me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But there'll be about seventy tons of it as far as I can reckon."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My Christian Aunt! do you tell me, Carter-me-lad, that you've scratched up seventy tons of cargo? Here, sit down. No, sit down. Don't talk. I'm not going to have you going away and calling the _M'poso_ a dry ship."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, where is this mine of yours? he asked genially."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Tell me, and I warrant I'll find you an easier way to bring your produce than paddling it in dugouts."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Up the river."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, let's look at your charts, me-lad."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, how's that? Haven't you made one?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, I've made one right enough, but it's inside my skull and out of public view."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "H'm, said Image."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't want any competitors, eh, Carter-me-lad?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why should I?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, drink up, and let me fill your glass. Here, have another squirt of bitters."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, thanks, Cappie, no more. I drank enough champagne with the King of Okky to last me months. I've got a lot of big business ahead of me and I want a clear head. Now, if you take this consignment of tin ore home for me, and rob me as little as you can help over freight, what's next? Swansea and a smelter, I suppose?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They're a bit Welsh down in Swansea, said Captain Image, who came from Cardiff himself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They'll do with a trifle of looking after. What you want's a smart agent."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The thing I want first and soonest is cash. Now, look here, Cappie, you know Swansea, and you're fond, by the Coast account, of a bit of commission. Well, here's a nice lump of it on offer. If you'll get some smelter firm to buy this parcel of ore on assay, and pay cash for it, I'll give you five per cent. on what you raise."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's a deal. You couldn't have come to a better man, Carter-me-lad. I'll open you an account at the Bank of West Africa----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And get the whole balance cabled out here?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I was going to suggest that, said Captain Image, doubtfully,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I want every sixpence. Man, do you think I'm going to nibble at my cake now it's been given me? Kallee's straight, I firmly believe. But what's his life worth?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Very heavy drinker even for a darky, and of course he hasn't a white man's advantages in knowing the use of drugs."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Besides, there are the usual risks of kings and of Africa. He's put down the local anarchist. He cooked the only two who tried to assassinate him, and took a day about it over slow fire, and that discouraged the breed in Okky. But still there are risks. So that altogether he's not a good life, and if he was to go out, it's quite on the cards his heirs, successors, and assigns might not recognize my title."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're right, me-lad. What you've got to do is to rip the guts out of that mine at the biggest pace possible, and I'll bring in the _M'poso_ round here to load every time I come along the Coast."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I don't know of any little steamboat that you could buy just now out here, cheap or dear. There are one or two in Sarry Leone, certainly, but they are all either too big for your job or too tender to bring round the Coast."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm a bit of mechanic, you know. I wouldn't mind nursing engines. My boy, White-Man's-Trouble, too, would make, according to his own account, a pretty decent second engineer."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, I know him. Used to be stand-by-at-crane boy on the _Secondee_, and stole everything that wasn't nailed down. But you'd never get one of those Sarry Leone wrecks round here without being drowned in the process. I tell you what, though. D'ye know anything about motor cars, me lad?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Because at Dutton and Maidson's factory at Copper River they've got an old wreck of an oil launch, if she hasn't rotted and sunk at moorings, that you could have cheap."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Everything cheap is dear to me just now. I haven't a penny in my pocket. But what do you mean by cheap?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, she certainly wasn't out in the river the last three times I called, but I did hear they'd hauled her up a creek. But if she hasn't sunk at moorings, and the ants haven't walked off with her, I should think you could get the bits that rust couldn't eat for three ten-pound notes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Does she burn gasolene?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, ordinary canned paraffin. I know that was supposed to be the great point about her when she was brought out. Only trouble was, she didn't seem to be an amateurs' boat at all, and after the first week or so there wasn't a soul in the factory that could get her to steam at all. So they tied her up to a buoy and did their business in the old dugouts and the surf boats as formerly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wonder if the old chief has got an emery wheel down in your engine room?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What do you want an emery wheel for? Sharpen your wits on?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, my razor. If I go and try and buy a motor launch with this red wool on my chin, they'll take me for the wild man down from the back of beyond and stick up the price."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Quite right. You've a very sound business mind, Carter-me-lad. You can, I believe, get a very sound thing in razors for a shilling at that fo'c'sle shop if Chips is still keeping one, and whilst I was buying I should get a bottle or two of Eno, if I were you. Capital thing to keep your liver down to gauge."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I want to get all these things, said Carter emphatically."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I daresay, indeed, I should like to buy up practically the whole of Chips' remaining stock, partly for my own use and partly to take up country. But the fact still remains unaltered that until I can get an advance against bills of lading, I am without a copper in my pocket. I suppose that greedy hound Balgarnie is the man to see about finance, though."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He is a greedy hound, Carter-me-lad, between you and me. Let me fill up your glass. No, don't put your hand across it. Well, I'll finish the bottle if you won't. You're open, just as a matter of form, to giving a lien on that cargo you're shipping? Just as a matter of form, of course, in case you peg out before things can be squared up?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Certainly, and I'm willing to give five per cent. per month for the accommodation."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, come now, me-lad, ten per cent.'s the usual. But I don't want to be stiff with an old friend like you, so we'll call it seven and a half. Captain Image went to the drawer under the chart table and unlocked it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come, now, say what you want. Anywhere up to fifty pounds."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I couldn't possibly do with less than a hundred,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm not going to let you go like this, me lad. I've one turkey left in the refrigerator, and if you peg out afterwards up those beastly rivers, I'd always like to think I'd stood you one good dinner when the chance came in my way. Come now, Carter-me-lad; turkey-chop? There's not another skipper on the Coast that would make you an offer like that."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, of course, there was Cascaes, said Carter judicially,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But I know we have got a plan-thing of the works stowed away somewhere, the agent stated."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Can you understand a machine from seeing a drawing?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Rather,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, we'll find it,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let you off your bargain if you like,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not a bit, said Carter."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lend me a couple of boys and I'll take those engines down and learn 'em for myself."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wait a bit, man, said the agent,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Very much obliged, said Carter,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You seem in the devil of a hurry."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am. Good-bye. Now then, Trouble, shove over that reversing lever to make the boat go ahead. Confound you, that's astern, you bushman. There, that's better. Good-bye all."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good-bye, and good luck,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good man, Kallee! said the Englishman appreciatively."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll dash you a new state umbrella for that."
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You've been getting hold of a gold mine of sorts, I hear. By the way, as you've arranged to start work as my son-in-law, I suppose I ought to get more familiar and call you Henry, or whatever it is."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "George, as a matter of fact."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I believe you're right. George is what Laura did say. My mistake. Where is your gold mine?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's tin. And it's up the rivers."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, keep it dark, my dear fellow, if you like. Not that it makes the smallest odds as far as I am concerned. You'd never catch me sweating after a mine. Besides, as a point of fact, I'm doing pretty well at my present job. Getting rubber properties, you know, for the mysterious Kate."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Miss O'Neill."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, certainly, Miss O'Neill, if you prefer it, though I don't see why you need be a prig with me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My late employer, you know."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ah, of course. And you admired her more than a little, so I gathered from Laura's letters, though she carefully refrained from saying so."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, look here, Slade, I've known you ever since I've been on the Coast, but this is the first time we've met on the new footing. I don't want to quarrel with my prospective father-in-law, but, by Christopher, if you don't leave Miss O'Neill out of the tale as far as I'm concerned, there's going to be a row. Kindly remember I'm engaged to Laura, and intend to marry her whether you like it or whether you don't."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nice filial sort of statement, that; but don't mind me. If you suit Laura's taste, I'll swallow you, too. I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear that I'm making a goodish thing of it myself just now. Kate--I beg your pardon--Miss O'Neill pays me my regular screw, and in addition gives me a nice sum down on every property I've bought for her, and a tidy block of shares when there's a company floated. I shall be able to give you and Laura a decent wedding present--in script. By the way, is she at Smooth River?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, Grand Canary."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How's that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Africa wasn't safe for her. You ought to be dam' well ashamed of yourself for leaving her here. You knew the danger from old Kallee a big sight better than she did. And you left her without a cent to get away with and not an ounce of credit."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then, said Slade stiffly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You can understand what you please,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Are you married to her?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am not at present. I shall be as soon as it suits Laura's convenience and my own."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You will kindly understand that I resent your interference with my finances and my daughter's."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You may resent, said the prospective son-in-law,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good Lord, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nothing of the kind, said Carter testily."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My boy Trouble has got the engines going to try to work us off this bank, and with his usual cleverness he has contrived a back fire, that's all. There--you can smell it. Now, I don't think you are a quarrelsome man as a general thing?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not I. Too much trouble to quarrel with people."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, I'll just ask you to give Laura and myself your benediction, and leave the rest to us."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If a wedding present of such dubious value will please you, I'm most pleased to give it. Especially as I see you're inclined to stick to my little girl. To tell the truth, I'd heard you were after somebody else and it made me rather mad. You know how rumors float about in the bush."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who's the other person, please?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, just my present employer--and your late one. But I've no doubt it's all a mistake."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you'll apply to her, I've no doubt she'll endorse that sentiment most thoroughly. I don't think Miss O'Neill's a person to throw herself away on one of her own ex-servants."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If you put it that way, I'm sure she isn't. By the way, do you know who she is?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What do you mean?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, I suppose you've discovered by this time that the late Godfrey O'Neill was a bachelor, and Kate's no relation to him at all. He and his sister Jane, who married a hopeless blackguard called Craven, adopted her between them and brought her up. I've never fagged myself to find out how she was bred, but you're one of these energetic fellows that like to dig into pedigrees, and I thought probably you'd know."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I don't know, and I shan't inquire."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All right, don't get excited about it, neither shall I. D'ye know I think if you could soften that genial manner without straining yourself, it would be an improvement. I'm led to believe that fathers-in-law expect a civility and even at times a certain mild amount of deference."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Did you defer to your father-in-law?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So that's the trouble, is it? Well, you didn't ask me to consult you when I chose a wife, and I didn't ask you to fall in love with my daughter. He turned his head and eyed Carter thoughtfully--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You are in love with her, I suppose?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Can you suggest any other possible reason why I should ask her to marry me?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, I can hardly imagine you did it for the honor of an alliance with me. I suppose if I were an energetic man I should try and worry out what it is you're so sore about. It must be something beyond the detail that Laura's got a touch of color in her, because of course you knew that from the first moment you met her. But I guess the something else will show itself in its own good time. In the meanwhile if you'll give me an account of what you advanced to Laura for this Grand Canary trip, I'll give you an I.O.U. for it. I don't care to be indebted to anyone for things like that."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll perhaps send in the bill when I hear there's a possibility of getting cash payment,"
}
]
|
55962 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dear sir, and ending"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O'Neill & Craven, per K. O'Neill. In arid business sentences it understood he had"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "it pointed out that"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and it suggested that O'Neill and Craven should buy the mine"
}
]
|
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