Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/129

. Said swapped recommendations with Mustafa. Each could use one as well as the other—legal tender in any hands. Then Said sped back to his prospective employer. "True is it, O thou Excellency—they were of my brother—my wife—forgiveness, Excellency" Simple-hearted Said, he got the job, and Old Reliable got a servant.

When Fudl choked Zack from the feeding-trough Lyttleton clapped his hands, and shouted, "Wahid! Said! Said!"

"Effendi," made answer Said, the scrawny, brown man.

"Zack," the Colonel pointed to Said, "here is your servant. He will take charge of you."

Zack did not smile; it was too momentous an occasion for mirth. From the fullness of his active day he remarked, "Yas, suh, Cunnel, I got bizness a plenty fer him to 'tend to."

"No doubt of it," laughed the Colonel. "Now don't bother us for awhile."

Meanwhile McDonald and Lyttleton had spread a stack of invoices on the table—lists of planting machinery, plows, hoes, every thinkable variety of cotton-seed, bagging, ties, supplies of all descriptions, a list of the articles suggested by Colonel Spottiswoode as probably necessary to stock a new plantation. To this the British had added many curious things of which a Southerner