The Philanderers | Page 4

answer them, upon this condition, however,--that all reference is omitted to any point on which I am unwilling to speak.'
The reporter demurred, but, seeing that Drake was obdurate, he was compelled to give way.
'The entire responsibility of the expedition rests with me,' Drake explained, 'but there were others concerned in it. You might trench upon private matters which only affect them.'
He watched the questions with the vigilance of a counsel on behalf of a client undergoing cross-examination, but they were directed solely to the elucidation of the disputed point whether Drake had or had not, while a captain in the service of the Matanga Republic, attacked a settlement of Arab slave-dealers within the zone of a British Protectorate. The editor of the Meteor believed that he had, and strenuously believed it--in the interests of his shareholders. Drake, on the other hand, and the Colonial Office, it should be added, were dispassionately indifferent to the question, for the very precise reason that they knew it could never be decided. There were doubts as to the exact sphere of British influence, and the doubts favoured Drake for the most part. Insular prehensiveness, at its highest flight, could do no more than claim Boruwimi as its uttermost limit, and was aware it would be hard put to it to substantiate the claim. The editor, nevertheless, persevered, bombarded its citizen readers with warnings about trade fleeing from lethargic empires, published a cartoon, and reluctantly took the blackest view of Drake's character and aims.
Drake's march with a handful of men six hundred miles through a tangled forest had been a handsome exploit, quickening British pride with the spectacle of an Englishman at the head of it. Civilian blood tingled in office and shop, claiming affinity with Drake's. It needed an Englishman to bill-hook a path through that fretwork of branches, and fall upon his enemy six weeks before he was expected--the true combination of daring and endurance that stamps the race current coin across the world! Economy also pleaded for Drake. But for him the country itself must have burned out the hornets' nest, and the tax-payer paid, and paid dearly. For there would have been talk of the expedition beforehand, the force would have found an enemy prepared and fortified. The hornets could sting too! Whereas Drake had burned them out before they had time to buzz. He need not have said one word in exculpation of himself, and that indeed he knew. But he had interests and ambitions of his own to serve; a hint of them peeped out.
'As to your future plans?' asked the reporter. 'You mean to go back, I presume.'
'No; London for me, if I can find a corner in it. I hold concessions in Matanga.'
'The land needs development, of course.'
'Machinery too; capital most of all.'
At the bookstall upon the platform Drake bought a copy of the Times, and whilst taking his change he was attracted by a grayish-green volume prominently displayed upon the white newspapers. The sobriety of the binding caught his fancy. He picked it up, and read the gold-lettered title on the back--A Man of Influence. The stall-keeper recommended the novel; he had read it himself; besides, it was having a sale. Drake turned to the title-page and glanced at the author's name--Sidney Mallinson. He flashed into enthusiasm.
'Selling, eh?'
'Very well indeed.'
'Has it been published long?'
'Less than three months.'
'I will take it, and everything else by the same author.'
'It is his first book.'
The stall-keeper glanced at his enthusiastic customer, and saw a sunburnt face, eager as a boy's.
'Oh!' he said doubtfully, 'I don't know whether you will like it. It's violently modern. Perhaps this,' and he suggested with an outstretched forefinger a crimson volume explained by its ornamentation of a couple of assegais bound together with a necklace of teeth. Drake laughed at the application of the homoeopathic principle to the sale of books.
'No, I will take this,' he said, and, moving aside from the stall, stood for a little turning the book over and over in his hands, feeling its weight and looking incessantly at the title-page, wondering, you would say, that the author had accomplished so much.
He had grounds for wonder, too. His thoughts went back across the last ten years, and he remembered Mallinson's clamouring for a reputation; a name--that had been the essential thing, no matter what the career in which it was to be won. Work he had classified according to the opportunities it afforded of public recognition; and his classification varied from day to day. A cause célèbre would suggest the Bar, a published sermon the Church, a flaming poster persuade to the stage. In a word, he had looked upon a profession as no more than a sounding-board.
It had always seemed to Drake that this fervid desire for fame, as a