he shrieked, seemingly losing all control over his feelings. “He save himself!  He knows nothing, honourable sir—­nothing whatever.  Who is he?  What does he want here—­the big thief?  What does he want here?  He throws dust into everybody’s eyes; he throws dust into your eyes, honourable sir; but he can’t throw dust into my eyes.  He is a big fool, honourable sir.”  I laughed contemptuously, and, turning on my heel, began to walk on again.  He ran up to my elbow and whispered forcibly, “He’s no more than a little child here—­like a little child—­a little child.”  Of course I didn’t take the slightest notice, and seeing the time pressed, because we were approaching the bamboo fence that glittered over the blackened ground of the clearing, he came to the point.  He commenced by being abjectly lachrymose.  His great misfortunes had affected his head.  He hoped I would kindly forget what nothing but his troubles made him say.  He didn’t mean anything by it; only the honourable sir did not know what it was to be ruined, broken down, trampled upon.  After this introduction he approached the matter near his heart, but in such a rambling, ejaculatory, craven fashion, that for a long time I couldn’t make out what he was driving at.  He wanted me to intercede with Jim in his favour.  It seemed, too, to be some sort of money affair.  I heard time and again the words, “Moderate provision—­suitable present.”  He seemed to be claiming value for something, and he even went the length of saying with some warmth that life was not worth having if a man were to be robbed of everything.  I did not breathe a word, of course, but neither did I stop my ears.  The gist of the affair, which became clear to me gradually, was in this, that he regarded himself as entitled to some money in exchange for the girl.  He had brought her up.  Somebody else’s child.  Great trouble and pains—­old man now—­suitable present.  If the honourable sir would say a word. . . .  I stood still to look at him with curiosity, and fearful lest I should think him extortionate, I suppose, he hastily brought himself to make a concession.  In consideration of a “suitable present” given at once, he would, he declared, be willing to undertake the charge of the girl, “without any other provision—­when the time came for the gentleman to go home.”  His little yellow face, all crumpled as though it had been squeezed together, expressed the most anxious, eager avarice.  His voice whined coaxingly, “No more trouble—­natural guardian—­a sum of money . . .”

’I stood there and marvelled.  That kind of thing, with him, was evidently a vocation.  I discovered suddenly in his cringing attitude a sort of assurance, as though he had been all his life dealing in certitudes.  He must have thought I was dispassionately considering his proposal, because he became as sweet as honey.  “Every gentleman made a provision when the time came to go home,” he began insinuatingly.  I slammed the little gate.  “In this case,