Things have been pretty dicky out in South Africa lately, you know.

Terrible hard it has been to make a living." "Your brother was supposed to have done pretty well out there," Wrayson remarked, more for the sake of keeping the conversation alive than anything.

The effect of his words, however, was electrical.

Mr.Sydney Barnes leaned over from his chair, and his little black eyes twinkled like polished beads.
"Mr.Wrayson," he declared, "a week before he sailed for England, Morris was on his uppers! He was caught in Johannesburg when the war broke out, and he had to stay there.

When he turned up in Cape Town again, his own mother wouldn't have known him.