It was no joke; and, if it had been, even the best of jokes pall when repeated through days and weeks and weary months.

But the garrison would never let anybody dream that they were doing heroic things, never send imploring messages for help to men already occupied with the enemy in other parts of South Africa.

To the question, "How long can you hold out ?" Baden-Powell had only one answer, "As long as the food lasts." And so we take leave of our friend the Old Carthusian defending his warm corner.

As the last page is turned we see him walking through the streets of Mafeking, now glancing with hard steely eye to the forts which throw their coward shells into the women's laager, now turning to give an order with clenched hands and locked jaws, and now stooping down to lift a child into his arms and caress away its little fears.
On his mind weighs the safety of that town with its handful of brave lives, the prestige of England, which suffers if the flag once set above the roofs of any town, whatever the size, falls before the assault of the Queen's enemies, and the thought that far away in distant London the mother who made him what he is, waits on the rack for his delivery.

Be sure that never a thought of adding to his own reputation enters the mind of Baden-Powell in little Mafeking, that never does bitterness for tardy release enter his soul, and that all his labour has but one great all-embracing end--the victory of his side.