"What a beastly shame!" Carter blurted out, and then felt surprised at himself. It was about the first time in his life that the Englishman that was within him had ever peeped out upon the surface.
"I know what the man's expedition cost--practically nothing. I saw the presents he gave old Kallee--£50 would have covered them. And for that, and a mouthful of empty words, he gets half a million square miles of territory, and trade of a present value of £100,000, and a potential value of £750,000, at a low estimate. Well, Mr. Carter, I'm braver than our F.O. I'm going to buck against the Anti-British party, and I'm going to see that we keep in our own hands what rightly belongs to us. I shall be called a pirate, but that doesn't disturb me. I lost all the reputation I had to lose at this same game years ago. I was doing my duty here then in West Africa. A smug little beast of a newspaper man got up in the House of Commons and demanded my dismissal. He would never have been heard of if he hadn't been consistently Anti-British on every occasion when the country was in disagreement with anyone else. But it was his dirty line, and it brought him a certain disgraceful notoriety, which was what he was after. He could command votes, or said he could, and the Government believed him. They didn't care particularly for England; their one interest was keeping their party in office; and as I was a nuisance, I had to go. It wasn't a case of being actually broke, you must understand, Mr. Carter, but they made things so awkward that I had to send in my papers all the same. They tried the same game with Rhodes, and Curzon, and Milner, the dirty little curs. They hate a man who tries to uphold Great Britain's dignity or give her another acre of territory.
"But here now, thank the Lord, I personally am unofficial, and I'm doing exactly what I know to be best without fear or favor of anybody."
"How far does your territory extend, sir?"
"As far as I can make it," said Mr. Smith dryly.
"Are you going to let it be developed by the white man?"
"Then," said Carter, "we shan't clash, and I'm sure you will give me my passports. I don't know whether the place I am making for is in your territory or the next king's, but I'm going there purely for purposes of development. I tell you frankly, I haven't a bit of ambition at present beyond making a pile. If ever I find myself a rich man I may take a hand in the thankless game you are on at here. But that's in the future. In the meanwhile, if the question is not indiscreet, might one ask if it was a Frenchman you were having that rifle duel with just now?"