Huish, humorously.
'Well, one got the law after a fashion,' said Attwater. 'One
had to be a number of things. It was sometimes rather a bore.'
'I should smile!' said Davis. 'Rather lively, I should think!'
'I dare say we mean the same thing,' said Attwater. 'However,
one way or another, one got it knocked into their heads that
they MUST work, and they DID. . . until the Lord took them!'
''Ope you made 'em jump,' said Huish.
'When it was necessary, Mr Whish, I made them jump,' said
Attwater.
'You bet you did,' cried the captain. He was a good deal
flushed, but not so much with wine as admiration; and his eyes
drank in the huge proportions of the other with delight. 'You bet
you did, and you bet that I can see you doing it! By God,
you're a man, and you can say I said so.'
'Too good of you, I'm sure,' said Attwater.
'Did you--did you ever have crime here?' asked Herrick,
breaking his silence with a pungent voice.
'Yes,' said Attwater, 'we did.'
'And how did you handle that, sir?' cried the eager captain.
'Well, you see, it was a queer case,' replied Attwater. 'it was
a case that would have puzzled Solomon. Shall I tell it you?
yes?'
The captain rapturously accepted.
'Well,' drawled Attwater, 'here is what it was. I dare say you
know two types of natives, which may be called the obsequious
and the sullen? Well, one had them, the types themselves,
detected in the fact; and one had them together. Obsequiousness
ran out of the first like wine out of a bottle, sullenness
congested in the second. Obsequiousness was all smiles; he ran to
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