"One evening as I was lying flat on the deck of my steamboat, I heard voices approaching-andthere were the nephew and the uncle strolling along the bank.

I laid my head on my arm again, andhad nearly lost myself in a doze, when somebody said in my ear, as it were: 'I am as harmless as alittle child, but I don't like to be dictated to.

Am I the manager-or am I not? I was ordered to sendhim there. It's incredible.' ... I became aware that the two were standing on the shore alongside theforepart of the steamboat, just below my head.

I did not move; it did not occur to me to move: Iwas sleepy. 'It is unpleasant,' grunted the uncle. 'He has asked the Administration to be sent there,'said the other, 'with the idea of showing what he could do; and I was instructed accordingly.

Look atthe influence that man must have. Is it not frightful?' They both agreed it was frightful, then madeseveral bizarre remarks: 'Make rain and fine weather-one man-the Council-by the nose'-bitsof absurd sentences that got the better of my drowsiness, so that I had pretty near the whole of mywits about me when the uncle said, 'The climate may do away with this difficulty for you.

Is he alonethere?' 'Yes,' answered the manager; 'he sent his assistant down the river with a note to me in theseterms: "Clear this poor devil out of the country, and don't bother sending more of that sort.

I hadrather be alone than have the kind of men you can dispose of with me." It was more than a year ago.Can you imagine such impudence!' 'Anything since then?' asked the other hoarsely. 'Ivory,' jerked thenephew; 'lots of it-prime sort-lots-most annoying, from him.' 'And with that?' questioned theheavy rumble. 'Invoice,' was the reply fired out, so to speak. Then silence. They had been talkingabout Kurtz.