to the Company; therefore I could understand his anxiety. He was, he said, 'very, very uneasy.” Certainly he fidgeted on his chair a good deal, exclaimed, 'Ah, Mr. Kurtz!” broke the stick of sealing-wax and seemed dumfounded by the accident. Next thing he wanted to know 'how long it would take to'... I interrupted him again. Being hungry, you know, and kept on my feet too. I was getting savage. 'How can I tell?” I said. 'I haven't even seen the wreck yet — some months, no doubt.

' All this talk seemed to me so futile. 'Some months,” he said. 'Well, let us say three months before we can make a start. Yes. That ought to do the affair.” I flung out of his hut (he lived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of verandah) muttering to myself my opinion of him. He was a chattering idiot.