You can never do anything with poor oxen.

Now to make a start.
I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and say--That's how I headed my deposition before the magistrate about poor Khiva's and Ventvoegel's sad deaths; but somehow it doesn't seem quite the right way to begin a book.

And, besides, am I a gentleman?
What is a gentleman?
I don't quite know, and yet I have had to do with niggers--no, I will scratch out that word "niggers," for I do not like it.

I've known natives who _are_, and so you will say, Harry, my boy, before you have done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who _are not_.
At any rate, I was born a gentleman, though I have been nothing but a poor travelling trader and hunter all my life.

Whether I have remained so I known not, you must judge of that.