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 ever thought of doing before, and the Company don't know what to make of it. I see they offer to send down their solicitor and another official of the Company to talk things over informally. Then here 's another letter suggesting that you put up a fourteen-foot wall, crowned with bottle-glass, at the bottom of the garden."

"Talk of British insolence! The man who recommends that (he 's another bloated functionary) says that I shall 'derive great pleasure from watching the wall going up day by day'! Did you ever dream of such gall? I 've offered 'em money enough to buy a new set of cars and pension the driver for three generations; but that does n't seem to be what they want. They expect me to go to the House of Lords and get a ruling, and build walls between times. Are they all stark, raving mad? One 'ud think I made a profession of flagging trains. How in Tophet was I to know their old Induna from a way-train? I took the first that came along, and I 've been jailed and fined for that once already."

"That was for slugging the guard."

"He had no right to haul me out when I was half-way through a window."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Their lawyer and the other official (can't they trust their men unless they send 'em in pairs?) are coming here to-night. I told 'em I was busy, as a rule, till after dinner, but they might send along the entire directorate if it eased 'em any."

Now, after-dinner visiting, for business or pleasure, is the custom of the smaller American town, and not that of England, where the end of the day is sacred to the