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Horrors!" exclaimed Barbara Harding. "I couldn't look at you if you did."

Well, then, tell me wot youse do want me to do."

Barbara discovered that her task was to be a difficult one if she were to

accomplish it without wounding the man's feelings; but she determined to strike

while the iron was hot and risk offending him--why she should be interested in

the regeneration of Mr. Billy Byrne it never once occurred to her to ask herself.

She hesitated a moment before speaking.

"One of the first things you must do, Mr. Byrne," she said, "is to learn to speak

correctly. You mustn't say 'youse' for 'you,' or 'wot' for 'what'---you must try to

talk as I talk. No one in the world speaks any language faultlessly, but there are

certain more or less obvious irregularities of grammar and pronunciation that are

particularly distasteful to people of refinement, and which are easy to guard

against if one be careful."

"All right," said Billy Byrne, "youse--you kin pitch in an' learn me wot--whatever

you want to an' I'll do me best to talk like a dude--fer your sake."

And so the mucker's education commenced, and as there was little else for the

two to do it progressed rapidly, for once started the man grew keenly interested,

spurred on by the evident pleasure which his self-appointed tutor took in his

progress--further it meant just so much more of close companionship with her.

For three weeks they never left the little island except to gather fruit which grew

hard by on the adjacent mainland. Byrne's wounds had troubled him

considerably--at times he had been threatened with blood poisoning. His

temperature had mounted once to alarming heights, and for a whole night

Barbara Harding had sat beside him bathing his forehead and easing his

sufferings as far as it lay within her power to do; but at last the wonderful vitality

of the man had saved him. He was much weakened though and neither of them

had thought it safe to attempt to seek the coast until he had fully regained his

old-time strength.

So far but little had occurred to give them alarm. Twice they had seen natives on

the mainland--evidently hunting parties; but no sign of pursuit had developed.

Those whom they had seen had been pure-blood Malays--there had been no

samurai among them; but their savage, warlike appearance had warned the two

against revealing their presence.

They had subsisted upon fish and fruit principally since they had come to the

island. Occasionally this diet had been relieved by messes of wild fowl and fox

that Byrne had been successful in snaring with a primitive trap of his own

115

The Mucker