He counted them; there were exactly three thousand.
I say that there are three thousand men in the British army." "Yah, yah!" said the chorus; and John gazed at this terrible person in bland exasperation.
"How many men do you command in the British army ?" she interrogated after a solemn pause.
"A hundred," said John sharply.
"Girl," said the old woman, addressing one of her daughters, "you have been to school and can reckon.

How many times does one hundred go into three thousand ?" The young lady addressed giggled confusedly, and looked for assistance to a sardonic Boer whom she was going to marry, who shook his head sadly, indicating thereby that these were mysteries into which it was not well to pry.

Thrown on her own resources, she plunged into the recesses of an intricate calculation, in which her fingers played a considerable part, and finally, with an air of triumph, announced that it went twenty-six times exactly.
"Yah, yah!" said the chorus, "it goes twenty-six times exactly." "The Captain," said the oracular old lady, who was rapidly driving John mad, "commands a twenty-sixth part of the British army, and he says that he comes here to farm with Uncle Silas Croft.

He says," she went on, with withering contempt, "that he comes here to farm when he commands a twenty-sixth part of the British army.

It is evident that he lies." "Yah, yah!" said the chorus.
"It is natural that he should lie!" she continued; "all Englishmen lie, especially the _rooibaatje_ Englishmen, but he should not lie so badly.
It must vex the dear Lord to hear a man lie so badly, even though he be an Englishman and a _rooibaatje_." At this point John burst from the house, and swore frantically to himself as soon as he was outside.