cob. Yes, when, all dressed the same, they stand together among the
goats on the last day few indeed will know them apart.

"A fool and a knave," said I to myself. "Well, perhaps I can deal with
the knave and then the fool will not trouble me."

As for the third man, I took no pains to study him, for I saw at once
that he was nothing but an interpreter.

Well, up they rode to the _stoep_, the two Englishmen taking off their
hats to me, after their foolish fashion, while the interpreter, who
called me "Aunt," although I was younger than he was, asked for leave to
off-saddle, according to our custom. I nodded my head, and having given
the horses to the Cape boys, they came up onto the _stoep_ and shook
hands with me as I sat. I was not going to rise to greet two Englishmen
whom I already hated in my heart, first because they _were_ Englishmen,
and secondly because they were about to tempt me into sin, for such
sooner or later we always learn to hate.

"Sit," I said, pointing to the yellow-wood bench which was seated with
strips of _rimpi_, and the three of them squeezed themselves into the
bench and sat there like white-breasted crows on a bough; the young man
staring at me with a silly smile, the lawyer peering this way and
that, and turning up his sharp nose at the place and all in it, and the
interpreter doing nothing at all, for he was a sensible man, who knew
the habits of well-bred people and how to behave in their presence.
After five minutes or so the lawyer grew impatient, and said something
in a sharp voice, to which the interpreter answered, "Wait."

So they waited till, just as the young man was beginning to go to sleep