I Shall Always
Regret I Have Not Got That Man's Portrait, For I Cannot Do Him
Justice With Ink.
He dashed up on to the verandah, smote the frail
form of Mr. Glass between the shoulders, and flung his own massive
one into a chair.
His name was Obanjo, but he liked it pronounced
Captain Johnson, and his profession was a bush and river trader on
his own account. Every movement of the man was theatrical, and he
used to look covertly at you every now and then to see if he had
produced his impression, which was evidently intended to be that of
a reckless, rollicking skipper. There was a Hallo-my-Hearty
atmosphere coming off him from the top of his hat to the soles of
his feet, like the scent off a flower; but it did not require a
genius in judging men to see that behind, and under this was a very
different sort of man, and if I should ever want to engage in a wild
and awful career up a West African river I shall start on it by
engaging Captain Johnson. He struck me as being one of those men,
of whom I know five, whom I could rely on, that if one of them and I
went into the utter bush together, one of us at least would come out
alive and have made something substantial by the venture; which is a
great deal more than I could say, for example, of Ngouta, who was
still with me, as he desired to see the glories of Gaboon and buy a
hanging lamp.
Captain Johnson's attire calls for especial comment and admiration.
However disconnected the two sides of his character might be, his
clothes bore the impress of both of his natures to perfection. He
wore, when first we met, a huge sombrero hat, a spotless singlet,
and a suit of clean, well-got-up dungaree, and an uncommonly
picturesque, powerful figure he cut in them, with his finely
moulded, well-knit form and good-looking face, full of expression
always, but always with the keen small eyes in it watching the
effect his genial smiles and hearty laugh produced. The eyes were
the eyes of Obanjo, the rest of the face the property of Captain
Johnson. I do not mean to say that they were the eyes of a bad bold
man, but you had not to look twice at them to see they belonged to a
man courageous in the African manner, full of energy and resource,
keenly intelligent and self-reliant, and all that sort of thing.
I left him and the refined Mr. Glass together to talk over the
palaver of shipping me, and they talked it at great length. Finally
the price I was to pay Obanjo was settled and we proceeded to less
important details. It seemed Obanjo, when up the river this time,
had set about constructing a new and large trading canoe at one of
his homes, in which he was just thinking of taking his goods down to
Gaboon.
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