Fide Gold Mine, Limited, that same company of which I was the unlucky
chairman, in consideration for which he had paid a sum of over six
hundred and fifty pounds.

"Hans," I said feebly, "from whom did you buy this?"

"From the baas with the hooked nose, Baas. He who was named Jacob, after
the great man in the Bible of whom your father, the Predikant, used to
tell us, that one who was so slim and dressed himself up in a goatskin
and gave his brother mealie porridge when he was hungry, after he had
come in from shooting buck, Baas, and got his farm and cattle, Baas, and
then went to Heaven up a ladder, Baas."

"And who told you to buy them, Hans?"

"Sammy, Baas, he who was your cook when we went to Pongoland, he who hid
in the mealie-pit when the slavers burned Beza-Town and came out half
cooked like a fowl from the oven. The Baas Jacob stopped at Sammy's
hotel, Baas, and told him that unless he bought bits of paper like this,
of which he had plenty, you would be brought before the magistrate and
sent to the _trunk_, Baas. So Sammy bought some, Baas, but not many for
he had only a little money, and the Baas Jacob paid him for all he ate
and drank with other bits of paper. Then Sammy came to me and showed me
what it was my duty to do, reminding me that your reverend father, the
Predikant, had left you in my charge till one of us dies, whether you
were well or ill and whether you got better or got worse--just like a
white wife, Baas. So I sold the farm and the cattle to a friend of the
Baas Jacob's, at a very low price, Baas, and that is all the story."

I heard and, to tell the honest truth, almost I wept, since the thought