"Anyhow I am very glad to see you in the flesh, though in the spirit you rather bored me because I heard too much of you.

Whenever I made a particularly bad miss, my gun-bearer, who at some time seems to have been yours, would say, 'Ah! if only it had been the Inkosi Macumazahn, how different would have been the end!' My name is Anscombe, Maurice Anscombe," he added rather shyly.

(Afterwards I discovered from a book of reference that he was a younger son of Lord Mountford, one of the richest peers in England.) Then we both laughed and he said-- "Tell me, Mr.Quatermain, if you will, what those Boers are saying behind us.

I am sure it is something unpleasant, but as the only Dutch I know is 'Guten Tag' and 'Vootsack' (Good-day and Get out) that takes me no forwarder." "It ought to," I answered, "for the substance of their talk is that they object to be 'vootsacked' by the British Government as represented by Sir Theophilus Shepstone.

They are declaring that they won the land 'with their blood' and want to keep their own flag flying over it." "A very natural sentiment," broke in Anscombe.
"They say that they wish to shoot all damned Englishmen, especially Shepstone and his people, and that they would make a beginning now were they not afraid that the damned English Government, being angered, would send thousands of damned English rooibatjes, that is, red-coats, and shoot _them_ out of evil revenge." "A very natural conclusion," laughed Anscombe again, "which I should advise them to leave untested.