I
didn't, so I became unpopular, and was voted a bore. But the work is
waiting for you young men."
Gribton rose, yawned, and stretched himself. "Shall I tell you any
more?"
"I don't think so," said Lewis, smiling; "I fancy I understand, and I am
sure we are obliged to you. Hadn't we better have a game?"
They went to the billiard-room and played two games of a hundred up,
both of which George, who had the idler's knack in such matters, won
with ease. Gribton played so well that he became excessively
good-humoured.
"I almost wish I was going out again if I had you two as company. We
don't get the right sort out there. Our globe-trotters all want to show
their cleverness, or else they are merely fools. You will find it
miserably dull. Nothing but bad claret and cheap champagne at the
clubs, a cliquey set of English residents, and the sort of stock sport
of which you tire in a month. That's what you may expect our frontier
towns to be like."
"And the neighbourhood?" said Lewis, with lifted eyebrows.
"Oh, the neighbourhood is wonderful enough; but our people there are too
slack and stale to take advantage of it. It is a peaceful frontier, you
know, and men get into a rut as easily there as elsewhere. The
country's too fat and wealthy, and people begin to forget the skeleton
up among the rocks in the north."
"What are the garrisons like?"
"Good people, but far too few for a serious row, and just sufficiently
large to have time hang on their hands.
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