I only wish that somebody would give me a pass, that's all." So John shook hands with him and left, to find an eager crowd gathered outside.
The news of their good luck had gone abroad, and everybody was running down to hear the truth of it.

Such an event as a departure out of Pretoria had not happened for a couple of months and more, and the excitement was proportionate to its novelty.
"I say, Niel, is it true you are going ?" halloed a burly farmer.
"How the deuce did you get a pass ?" put in another man with a face like a weasel.

He was what is known as a _Boer vernuker_ (literally a "Boer cheater"), that is, a travelling trader whose business it is to beguile the simple-minded Dutchman by selling him worthless goods at five times their value.

"I have loads of friends among the Boers.

There is hardly a Boer in the Transvaal who does not know me"-- ("To his cost," put in a bystander with a grunt)--"and yet I have tried all I know"-- ("And you know a good deal," said the same rude man)--"and _I_ can't get a pass." "You don't suppose those poor Boers are going to let you out once they have got you in ?" went on the tormentor.