But there, I'll try and begin at the beginning.
"You know Cathcart got the post of Consulting Surveyor and Engineer to the Bekwando Syndicate, and he was head man at our London place.

Well, they sent me from Capetown to be junior to him, and a jolly good move for me too.

I never did see anything in Cathcart! He's a lazy sort of chap, hates work, and I guess he only got the job because his uncle had got a lot of shares in the business.

It seems he never wanted to come, hates any place except London, which accounts for a good deal.
"All the time when we were waiting, he wasn't a bit keen and kept on rotting about the good times he might have been having in London, and what a fearful country we were stranded in, till he almost gave me the blues, and if there hadn't been some jolly good shooting and a few nice chaps up at the Fort, I should have been miserable.

As it was, I left him to himself a good deal, and he didn't like that either.