Read "The People of the River" by Edgar Wallace online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
SANDERS was used to the child-like buttering of his people, and accepted their praise without conviction. It was part of the game. He expected to be termed "Protector of Persecuted People," "Lord of Wisdom," and the like, and would have been suspicious if these terms were omitted, because that was all part of the game, and meant no more than the prefix "dear" in the epistles of the civilised.
Just so long as flattery and sycophancy ran along conventional lines, just so long as politeness followed a normal course, Sanders was satisfied; if compliment fell short or slopped over, all his intellectual bristles stood on end, and he looked around with narrowed eyes and a growl in his throat for the danger which lay somewhere to hand.