They will
tell you a very different story about Harry's doings.'
'Well,' allowed Mr. Mohun, 'there are apparitions of brown niggers done
up as smart as twopence prancing about the house. Perfectly
uninteresting, you know, the savage sophisticated out of his
picturesqueness. I made a point of asking no questions, not knowing
what I might be let in for.'
'Then you heard nothing of Mr. Ward, the Melanesian missionary, whom
Phyllis keeps a room for when he comes to New Zealand to recruit.'
'The man who was convicted of murder on circumstantial evidence! Oh
yes. I heard of him. I believe the labour-traffic agents heartily
wish him at Portland still, he makes the natives so much too sharp.'
'Aye,' said the colonel, 'as long as Britons aren't slaves they have no
objection to anything but the name for other people.'
'Wait till you get out there, Regie, and see what they all say about
those lazy fellows--except, of course, ladies and parsons, and a few
whom they've bitten, like May.'
'The few are on the Christian side, of course,' said Lady Merrifield,
with irony in her tone.
Indeed, she was not at all sure that half this colonial prejudice was
not assumed in order to tease her, just as in former times her brother
would make game of her enthusiasms about school children; for he was
altogether returned to his old self, his sister Jane, who had seen the
most of him, testifying that the original Maurice had revived, as never
in the course of his married life.
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