three thousand?"

The young lady addressed giggled confusedly, and looked for assistance
to a sardonic Boer whom she was going to marry, who shook his head
sadly, indicating thereby that these were mysteries into which it was
not well to pry. Thrown on her own resources, she plunged into the
recesses of an intricate calculation, in which her fingers played a
considerable part, and finally, with an air of triumph, announced that
it went twenty-six times exactly.

"Yah, yah!" said the chorus, "it goes twenty-six times exactly."

"The Captain," said the oracular old lady, who was rapidly driving John
mad, "commands a twenty-sixth part of the British army, and he says that
he comes here to farm with Uncle Silas Croft. He says," she went on,
with withering contempt, "that he comes here to farm when he commands a
twenty-sixth part of the British army. It is evident that he lies."

"Yah, yah!" said the chorus.

"It is natural that he should lie!" she continued; "all Englishmen lie,
especially the _rooibaatje_ Englishmen, but he should not lie so badly.
It must vex the dear Lord to hear a man lie so badly, even though he be
an Englishman and a _rooibaatje_."

At this point John burst from the house, and swore frantically to
himself as soon as he was outside. It is to be hoped that he was
forgiven, for the provocation was not small. It is not pleasant to be
universally set down not only as a _leugenaar_ (liar), but as one of the
very feeblest order.