" He paused, and added painfully: "The trouble is, I can't
make her see that I am differently situated."
"But, Ned, the climate--what are you going to gain by chucking
yourself away?"
He lifted his brows. "That's a queer argument from _you_. And,
besides, I'm up to the tricks of all those ague-holes. And I've
_got_ to live, you see: I've got something to put through." He saw
my look of enquiry, and added with a shy, poignant laugh--how I hear
it still!--: "I don't mean only the job in hand, though that's
enough in itself; but Paul's work--you understand.--It won't come in
_my_ day, of course--I've got to accept that--but my boy's a
splendid chap" (the boy was three), "and I tell you what it is, old
man, I believe when he grows up _he'll put it through_."
Halidon went to the Mananas, and for two years the journals brought
me incidental reports of the work he was accomplishing. He certainly
had found a job to his hand: official words of commendation rang
through the country, and there were lengthy newspaper leaders on the
efficiency with which our representative was prosecuting his task in
that lost corner of our colonies.
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