"Funny thing," he went on.

"Of all the people I speak to, nobody ever asks after him but that Chinaman of mine--and Schomberg," he added after a while.
Yes, Schomberg, of course.

He was asking everybody about everything, and arranging the information into the most scandalous shape his imagination could invent.

From time to time he would step up, his blinking, cushioned eyes, his thick lips, his very chestnut beard, looking full of malice.
"Evening, gentlemen.

Have you got all you want?
So! Good! Well, I am told the jungle has choked the very sheds in Black Diamond Bay.