thing. Also I wanted to travel; nothing else really amuses me."

"You will soon get tired of it," I answered, "and as you are well
off, marry some fine lady and settle down at home."

"Don't think so. I doubt if I should ever be happily married, I
want too much. One doesn't pick up an earthly angel with a
cast-iron constitution who adores you, which are the bare
necessities of marriage, under every bush." Here I laughed.
"Also," he added, the laughter going out of his eyes, "I have had
enough of fine ladies and their ways."

"Marriage is better than scrapes," I remarked sententiously.

"Quite so, but one might get them both together. No, I shall
never marry, although I suppose I ought as my brothers have no
children."

"Won't you, my friend," thought I to myself, "when the skin grows
again on your burnt fingers."

For I was sure they had been burnt, perhaps more than once. How,
I never learned, for which I am rather sorry for it interests me
to study burnt fingers, if they do not happen to be my own. Then
we changed the subject.

Anscombe's wagons were delayed for a day or two by a broken axle
or a bog hole, I forget which. So, as I had nothing particular
to do until the Natal post-cart left, we spent the time in
wandering about Pretoria, which did not take us long as it was