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numbers followed by the degree symbols must indicate latitude and longitude. Still, he shook his head.
    Mr. Owen mistook that. “But the tract is vast!” he exclaimed. “Thousands of square miles, and some of the richest croplands on the African continent—”
    â€œNo, no, it’s not—”
    â€œDo you tell me that my efforts were in vain? After the work I’ve done to ensure that our common dream—”
    Thomas’s landlady opened the door and stuck her head through. “Any trouble, Lieutenant Reverend, sir?”
    â€œNone, Mrs. Swain. Let us alone, if you please.” No doubt due to his fame, Thomas had found lodging easily enough here in Ireland, and indeed in every place he went among the British Isles. Unlike at home. But the corollary effect of general public interest in all his endeavors had begun to wear on him after three years. He worried it would bring him to the notice of those against whom Morel had warned.
    â€œIt’s only that your voices have risen a bit, though you may be unaware so, and I’m fearful you’ll be disturbing our other tenants at their tea, and I know you was wishful not to, which is why you come in here, but if you’d rather invite your guest up to your rooms I’m certain it will—”
    â€œMy apologies.” Mr. Owen bent in a sort of seated bow. “We became excited in our conversation. Momentarily. Excuse us to your boarders, and—have you a boy? Yes?” He held a coin out at the level of the door’s knob and Mrs. Swain’s hand emerged to take it. “If you don’t mind asking him to procure some sort of treat to soothe their ruffled feelings—”
    Thus dispatched, she closed the door. “With your permission?” Mr. Owen rose and opened it to reveal her already half the way along the passage. “Though if you’re not interested after all, then there’s no need for such stringent privacy.”
    â€œMr. Owen, I am interested. Very much so. I only…” He only wished he were learned enough to have understood the map over which he’d shaken his head in confusion. Thomas hated to admit the irregularities in his education to a man who so obviously took his own more protected upbringing for granted. “I only wonder—if—wonder—how many I will be able to provide—” Nothing could be allowed to hinder his mission; his excuse for not immediately seizing on Owen’s offer must make sense . “That is, how many other American Negroes I can persuade to join our enterprise.”
    In answer to these maunderings he received a rather sharpish look. Then a decisive nod. “I’m of the same mind. We must do our utmost not to repeat the errors of the past. Enforced transportation and settlement, as in Australia, or indenturement, servitude of any sort—the slightest hint of slavery! We must avoid them all.
    â€œWhich is why—” Owen stood and peered into the passageway. “Ah. If you will procure your topcoat I’ll show you those works now, as I promised.”
    There’d been no such promise, but Thomas heard Mrs. Swain’s flat-footed tread approaching over the rush mats covering the passage floor. He took the hint, and they left the kitchen on the tide of her thanks.
    His Chesterfield hung on the rack by the front entry. He donned it as they descended the steps to the street. It was a new purchase and he felt childishly pleased with it. He berated himself silently for this as they walked beneath pink clouds and lamps recently lit. Pride goeth before a fall. He ought to think instead of his mission, the vow he’d made to rescue his brethren back home in America, who struggled just to put rags on their backs. Ought also to recall the salvation deserved by those poor heathens dying even now in the sweltering jungles of King Leopold’s Congo. Their case had been beyond horrible three years ago, and