She was riding on one of the little trolley-cars, pushed by two boys in white official uniform, dressed in her flimsiest best, a lace parasol across her knee, and beside her an obvious member of the government—­young, and so recently from home as not to have lost his pink cheeks yet.

Had there not been an awning over the trolley-car she might have used the parasol to make believe she had not seen us.  But the awning precluded that, and we were not more than two or three yards away.

“Laugh!” whispered Fred.

So we crossed the track laughing and the trolley had to pause to let us by.  We laughed as we raised our helmets to her—­laughed both at her and at the pink and white puppy she had taken in leash.  And then the sort of thing happened that nearly always does when men with a reasonable faith in their own integrity make up their minds to see opprobrium through.  Fate stepped hard on our arm of the balance.

If built-over Mombasa is a small place, so is Africa.  So is the world.  Striding down the hill from the other hotel, the rival one, the Royal, came a man so well known in so many lands that they talk of naming a tenth of a continent after him—­the mightiest hunter since Nimrod, and very likely mightier than he; surely more looked-up to and respected—­a little, wiry-looking, freckled, wizened man whose beard had once been red, who walked with a decided limp and blinked genially from under the brim of a very neat khaki helmet.

“Why, bless my soul if it isn’t Fred Oakes!” he exclaimed, in a squeaky, worn-out voice that is as well known as his face, and quickened his pace down-hill.

“Courtney!” said Fred.  “There’s only one man I’d rather meet!”

The little man laughed.  “Oh, you and your Montdidier are still inseparable, I suppose!  How are you, Fred?  I’m glad to see you.  Who are your friends?”

At that minute out came the collector from his office—­stood on the step, and stared.  Fred introduced us to Courtney, and I experienced the thrill of shaking hands with the man accounts of whose exploits had fired my schoolboy imagination and made stay-at-home life forever after an impossibility.

“I missed the steamer, Fred. Not another for a week.  Going down now to see about a passage to Somaliland.  I suppose you’ll be at the club after dinner?”

“No” said Fred.  “We’ve an invitation, but I think we’ll send a note and say we can’t come.  We’ll dine at our hotel and sit on the veranda afterward.”

I wondered what Fred was driving at, and so did the collector who was headed across the street and listening with all ears.

“That so?  Not a bad idea.  They’ve very kindly made me an honorary member of the club, but I rather expect there’s a string to that—­eh, Fred, don’t you?  They’ll expect stories,—­stories.  I get tired of telling the same tales so many times over.  Suppose I join you fellows, eh?  I’m at the Royal.  You at the other place?  Suppose I join you after dinner, and we have a pipe together on the veranda?”