A little English boy ran through the smoking-room, and they fell
upon him, and quarrelled for the privilege of holding him on their
knees. He was a shy, coquettish little English boy, and the
boisterous, noisy men did not appeal to him. To them he meant home
and family and the old nursery, papered with colored pictures from
the Christmas _Graphic_. His stout, bare legs and tangled curls and
sailor's hat, with "H.M.S. Mars" across it, meant all that was clean
and sweet-smelling in their past lives.
"I'll arrest you for a deserter," said the lieutenant of the
gunboat. "I'll make the consul send you back to the _Mars_." He held
the boy on his knee fearfully, handling him as though he were some
delicate and precious treasure that might break if he dropped it.
The agent of the Oceanic Development Company, Limited, whose
business in life is to drive savage Angonis out of the jungle, where
he hopes in time to see the busy haunts of trade, begged for the boy
with eloquent pleading.
"You've had the kiddie long enough now," he urged. "Let me have him.
Come here, Mr. Mars, and sit beside me, and I'll give you fizzy
water--like lemon-squash, only nicer." He held out a wet bottle of
champagne alluringly.
"No, he is coming to his consul," that youth declared. "He's coming
to his consul for protection. You are not fit characters to
associate with an innocent child. Come to me, little boy, and do not
listen to those degraded persons.
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