“Like me.  By Jove! why shouldn’t we go out together?”

“Because we have some sense, I suppose,” said Compton, coolly.  “Have you ever roughed it?”

“I have slept out in the New Forest—­often.”

“Oh, that’s picnicking, with the bark of the fox in place of the lion’s roar, and good food in place of ‘hard tack,’ and perhaps the attentions of a suspicious keeper instead of a surprise attack by wild men of the woods.  An explorer needs experience.”

“Yes, and he must buy his own experience; but tell me how he can, unless he makes a beginning.”

“Now we come to the point, Venning.  He should begin with some one who already has experience.”

“I see.  And you will wait till some seasoned explorer kindly asks you to join him?  You’ll have to wait a precious long time.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Dick Compton, with a knowing smile.

“Have you found your explorer, Dick?” shouted Venning, eagerly.

Compton produced a leather purse and extracted a slip of paper cut from an advertisement column, and passed it to his friend.

“By Jove! eh, that’s splendid!” spluttered Venning, in his excitement as he glanced at the paper.

“Read it over.”

Venning read the notice—­

“A gentleman, who is an experienced traveler, being about to enter upon an expedition into Central Africa, would like to make arrangements with two young men of education and of means to bear a share of the expenses to accompany him.—­Apply, for further particulars, to D. H., No. 109 Box, Office of this paper.”

“Let us write at once to D. H.,” he said eagerly.

“I have seen him.”

Venning took a deep breath and stared at his friend.

“I saw him this very morning,” said Compton, quietly.

“And----------”

“He said you were too young!  Eh?  Go on—­go on!”

“And I told him I thought I could find a friend who would join me.”

“You mean to say that he agreed to take you?” cried Venning, jumping up.

Compton nodded.

“Oh, splendid!  And you will take me to him?  You’re a brick.  What is he like, eh?  Is he old or young, eh?”

Compton kept cool outwardly, but he could not subdue the glitter of his dark eyes, or keep the colour out of his cheeks.

“He is about five feet four.  I can look over his head.”

“Oh!”

“There are grey hairs in his beard.”

“Quite old; old and little!  What bad luck!  He will have to look up to us.”

“Well, you know, he can’t help being small, can he?”

“I suppose, like most little men, he is as vain as he can stick, bumptious, and fidgety,” said Venning, despondently.

“He struck me as being very quiet.  At any rate, you can judge for yourself, as we are due to see him within half an hour.  You must tell him that you are a naturalist, as he intends writing a book, in which a great deal of space will be given to animals.  He said he felt a ‘bit shaky on his pins’ when it came to scientific terms.”