Atoms Of Empire Author:C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE FINGER OF HANKIN He was called William Edward Hankin Seale, and by giving him the name of Hankin, his godfathers and godmothers considered that the... more »y had provided him with brilliant prospects. Wherefore they economised, and forbore to add the usual christening mug and silver feeding tackle. In after years William Edward Seale had it constantly repeated to him that there was a man called Hankin who lived on a place called the West Coast of Africa, where he had amassed wealth, and was still amassing. In his school days William Edward Seale said little about the vague Hankin. He learned that West Africa was a considerable distance from Charterhouse in miles ; that the climate was hot, through some connection which it had with a thing called the equator, upon which the sun apparently traversed as a bead does upon a wire; and that the Coast produced gold dust, ivory, and monkeys. Afterwards he got hold of The Cruise of the Midge, and added to this list of products, slaves, fever, sunstroke, and picturesque fighting.He pictured Hankin as a king of countless negroes, who owned a long black schooner for nefarious purposes, and who went out for rides on his own private elephant and ate cocoa-nuts free of cost. He rather envied the old gentleman, but he did not swagger about him then. Later, however, he did both. He went from Charterhouse to a bank in London, where he laboured easily, but acquired no unwieldy prosperity. He lived slightly beyond his income, but kept the leeway in check by waving Hankin before the eyes of his duns. He pointed out that the West Coast was notoriously unhealthy and that Hankin could not live much longer. He was generous in the matter of interest, too. He said that when he put on a black tie for Hankin, they would see that there was nothing me...« less