'"
Sheldon put his hands to his ears.
"I don't know what has happened, and you are trying to tell me the tale
backwards. Come up to the house and get in the shade and begin at the
beginning."
"What I want to know," Oleson began, when they were seated, "is _is_ she
your partner or ain't she? That's what I want to know."
"She is," Sheldon assured him.
"Well, who'd have believed it!" Oleson glanced appealingly at Dr.
Welshmere, and back again at Sheldon. "I've seen a few unlikely things
in these Solomons--rats two feet long, butterflies the Commissioner hunts
with a shot-gun, ear-ornaments that would shame the devil, and
head-hunting devils that make the devil look like an angel. I've seen
them and got used to them, but this young woman of yours--"
"Miss Lackland is my partner and part-owner of Berande," Sheldon
interrupted.
"So she said," the irate skipper dashed on. "But she had no papers to
show for it. How was I to know? And then there was that load of ivory
nuts-eight tons of them."
"For heaven's sake begin at the--" Sheldon tried to interrupt.
"And then she's hired them drunken loafers, three of the worst scoundrels
that ever disgraced the Solomons--fifteen quid a month each--what d'ye
think of that? And sailed away with them, too! Phew!--You might give me
a drink.
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