Ask "Tommy" privately, when he comes home, if this is not so--not "Thomas,"
who has been on lines of communication all the time--but "Tommy," who has
fought him, and measured heart and hand with him. I think he will tell you
much as I have told you. For "Tommy" is no fool; he is not half such a
braggart, either, as some of the Jingoes, who shout and yell, but never
take a hand in the real fighting; those wastrels of England, who are at
home with a pewter of beer in their hands--hands that never did, and never
will, grip a rifle.

Whilst at Trummel I took advantage of a couple of days' camping to go out
three miles from camp to have a look at a diamond mine. I found a
red-whiskered Dutchman in charge, who knew less English than I knew Dutch,
and as my Dutch consists of about twelve words we did not do much in the
conversational line; but I made him understand by pantomimic telegraphy
that I wanted to have a look round, to size up things. He took me to a
"dump," where the ore at grass was stored, and converted himself into a
human stone-cracking machine for my benefit, until I had seen all that I
wanted to see in regard to the "ore at grass." He was very much like mine
managers the world over--very ready to play tricks on anyone he considered
"green" at the business. It was not his fault that he did not know that I
had been a reporter on gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, and coal mines for
about twenty years.

Thinking, doubtless, that I was like unto the ordinary city fellow who
comes at rare intervals to look at a mine, he made me a present of a piece
of rock with some worthless garnets in it, also a sample of country rock
pregnant with mundic; the garnets and the mundic glittered in the sunshine.
I rose to the bait, as I was expected to do, and intimated that I would
like a lot of it. This delighted the Dutchman, and he beamed all over his