Over everything brooded peace, except over one flamboyant many-winged
building of red brick and white stone with a garden about it, an
avenue--a Capetown avenue, shady trees and cool but not large:
attractive and not imposing--at one side of it, with a statue of the
Queen before and broad-flagged stairs behind. It was the Parliament
House. The Legislative Assembly--their House of Commons--was
characteristically small, yet characteristically roomy and
characteristically comfortable. The members sit on flat green-leather
cushions, two or three on a bench, and each man's name is above his
seat: no jostling for Capetown. The slip of Press gallery is above the
Speaker's head; the sloping uncrowded public gallery is at the other
end, private boxes on one side, big windows on the other. Altogether it
looks like a copy of the Westminster original, improved by leaving
nine-tenths of the members and press and public out.

Yet here--alas, for placid Capetown!--they were wrangling.
They were wrangling about the commandeering of gold and the
sjamboking--shamboking, you pronounce it--of Johannesburg refugees.
There was Sir Gordon Sprigg, thrice Premier, grey-bearded, dignified,
and responsible in bearing and speech, conversationally reasonable in
tone. There was Mr Schreiner, the Premier, almost boyish with plump,
smooth cheeks and a dark moustache. He looks capable, and looks as if he
knows it: he, too, is conversational, almost jerky, in speech, but with
a flavour of bitterness added to his reason.

Everything sounded quiet and calm enough for Capetown--yet plainly
feeling was strained tight to snapping. A member rose to put a question,
and prefaced it with a brief invective against all Boers and their
friends. He would go on for about ten minutes, when suddenly angry cries