He found an opportunity now to intervene.
"So you two were really friends in Africa ?" he remarked, with a queer and almost inexplicable sense of relief.
"If Sir Everard permits our association to be so called," Seaman replied.

"We have done business together in the great cities--in Johannesburg and Pretoria, in Kimberley and Cape Town--and we have prospected together in the wild places.

We have trekked the veldt and been lost to the world for many months at a time.

We have seen the real wonders of Africa together, as well as her tawdry civilisation." "And you, too," Mr.Mangan asked, "have you retired ?" Seaman's smile was almost beatific.
"The same deal," he said, "which brought Sir Everard's fortune to wonderful figures brought me that modest sum which I had sworn to reach before I returned to England.

It is true.