The business intrusted to this fellow was the making of bricks -- so I had been informed; but there wasn't a fragment of a brick anywhere in the station, and he had been there more than a year -- waiting. It seems he could not make bricks without something, I don't know what -- straw maybe. Anyway, it could not be found there and as it was not likely to be sent from Europe, it did not appear clear to me what he was waiting for. An act of special creation perhaps. However, they were all waiting -- all the sixteen or twenty pilgrims of them -- for something; and upon my word it did not seem an uncongenial occupation, from the way they took it, though the only thing that ever came to them was disease -- as far as I could see.

     They beguiled the time by back-biting and intriguing against each other in a foolish kind of way.

     There was an air of plotting about that station, but nothing came of it, of course. It was as unreal as everything else -- as the philanthropic pretence of the whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work. The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account -- but as to effectually lifting a little finger -- oh, no.