I said:  ’Of course the guns did not fire, because you had raised the white flag.’

‘Yes,’ he answered, ’to ask for armistice, but not to give in.  We are not going to give in yet.  Besides, we have heard that your Lancers speared our wounded at Elandslaagte.’  We were getting on dangerous ground.  He hastened to turn the subject.  ’It’s all those lying newspapers that spread these reports on both sides, just like the capitalists made the war by lying.’

A little further on the ticket collector came to join in the conversation.  He was a Hollander, and very eloquent.

‘Why should you English take this country away from us?’ he asked, and the silent Boer chimed in broken English.  ’Are not our farms our own?  Why must we fight for them?’

I endeavoured to explain the ground of our quarrel.  ’After all British government is not a tyranny.’

‘It’s no good for a working-man,’ said the ticket collector; ’look at Kimberley.  Kimberley was a good place to live in before the capitalists collared it.  Look at it now.  Look at me.  What are my wages?’

I forget what he said they were, but they were extraordinary wages for a ticket collector.

‘Do you suppose I should get such wages under the English Government?’

I said ‘No.’

‘There you are,’ he said.  ‘No English Government for me,’ and added inconsequently, ‘We fight for our freedom.’

Now I thought I had an argument that would tell.  I turned th the farmer, who had been listening approvingly: 

‘Those are very good wages.’

‘Ah, yes.’

‘Where does the money come from?’

‘Oh, from the taxes ... and from the railroad.’

‘Well, now, you send a good deal of your produce by rail, I suppose?’

‘Ya’ (an occasional lapse into Dutch).

‘Don’t you find the rates very high?’

‘Ya, ya,’ said both the Boers together; ‘very high.’

‘That is because he’ (pointing to the ticket collector) ’is getting such good wages.  You are paying them.’  At this they both laughed heartily, and Spaarwater said that that was quite true, and that the rates were too high.

‘Under the English Government,’ I said, ’he will not get such high wages; you will not have to pay such high rates.’

They received the conclusion in silence.  Then Spaarwater said, ’Yes, but we shall have to pay a tribute to your Queen.’

‘Does Cape Colony?’ I asked.

‘Well, what about that ironclad?’

’A present, a free-will offering because they are contented—­as you will be some day—­under our flag.’

’No, no, old chappie, we don’t want your flag; we want to be left alone.  We are free, you are not free.’

‘How do you mean “not free"?’

’Well, is it right that a dirty Kaffir should walk on the pavement—­without a pass too?  That’s what they do in your British Colonies.  Brother!  Equal!  Ugh!  Free!  Not a bit.  We know how to treat Kaffirs.’