The doctor, too, was a precious clever fellow.  He knew something of chemistry—­and of most other subjects, including, as I gathered, the human character.  For he talked to Charles about various ideas of his, with which he wished to “liven up folks in Kentucky a bit,” on his return, till Charles conceived the highest possible regard for his intelligence and enterprise.  “That’s a go-ahead fellow, Sey!” he remarked to me one day.  “Has the right sort of grit in him!  Those Americans are the men.  Wish I had a round hundred of them on my works in South Africa!”

That idea seemed to grow upon him.  He was immensely taken with it.  He had lately dismissed one of his chief superintendents at the Cloetedorp mine, and he seriously debated whether or not he should offer the post to the smart Kentuckian.  For my own part, I am inclined to connect this fact with his expressed determination to visit his South African undertakings for three months yearly in future; and I am driven to suspect he felt life at Cloetedorp would be rendered much more tolerable by the agreeable society of a quaint and amusing American lady.

“If you offer it to him,” I said, “remember, you must disclose your personality.”

“Not at all,” Charles answered.  “I can keep it dark for the present, till all is arranged for.  I need only say I have interests in South Africa.”

So, one morning on deck, as we were approaching the Banks, he broached his scheme gently to the doctor and Mrs. Quackenboss.  He remarked that he was connected with one of the biggest financial concerns in the Southern hemisphere; and that he would pay Elihu fifteen hundred a year to represent him at the diggings.

“What, dollars?” the lady said, smiling and accentuating the tip-tilted nose a little more.  “Oh, Mr. Porter, it ain’t good enough!”

“No, pounds, my dear madam,” Charles responded.  “Pounds sterling, you know.  In United States currency, seven thousand five hundred.”

“I guess Elihu would just jump at it,” Mrs. Quackenboss replied, looking at him quizzically.

The doctor laughed.  “You make a good bid, sir,” he said, in his slow American way, emphasising all the most unimportant words:  “But you overlook one element.  I am a man of science, not a speculator.  I have trained myself for medical work, at considerable cost, in the best schools of Europe, and I do not propose to fling away the results of much arduous labour by throwing myself out elastically into a new line of work for which my faculties may not perhaps equally adapt me.”

("How thoroughly American!” I murmured, in the background.)

Charles insisted; all in vain.  Mrs. Quackenboss was impressed; but the doctor smiled always a sphinx-like smile, and reiterated his belief in the unfitness of mid-stream as an ideal place for swopping horses.  The more he declined, and the better he talked, the more eager Charles became each day to secure him.  And, as if on purpose to draw him on, the doctor each day gave more and more surprising proofs of his practical abilities.  “I am not a specialist,” he said.  “I just ketch the drift, appropriate the kernel, and let the rest slide.”