sults for the Government. The crisis demanded that he
remain literally on the job all the time. He left little to his
lieutenants. Confident of his ability in debate he was always willing to
risk a showdown but he had to be there when it came.

I watched him as he sat in the House. He occupied a front bench directly
opposite Hertzog and where he could look his arch enemy squarely in the
eyes all the time. I have seen him sit like a Sphinx for an hour without
apparently moving a muscle. He has cultivated that rarest of arts which
is to be a good listener. He is one of the great concentrators. In this
genius, for it is little less, lies one of the secrets of his success.
During a lull in legislative proceedings he has a habit of taking a
solitary walk out in the lobby. More than once I saw him pacing up and
down, always with an ear cocked toward the Assembly Room so he could
hear what was going on and rush to the rescue if necessary.

In the afternoon he would sometimes go into the members' smoking room
and drink a cup of coffee, the popular drink in South Africa. In the old
Boer household the coffee pot is constantly boiling. With a cup of
coffee and a piece of "biltong" inside him a Boer could fight or trek
all day. Coffee bears the same relation to the South African that tea
does to the Englishman, save that it is consumed in much larger
quantities. I might add that Smuts neither drinks liquor of any kind nor
smokes, and he eats sparingly. He admits that his one dissipation is
farming.

This comes naturally because he was born fifty years ago on a farm in
what is known as the Western Province in the Karoo country. He did his
share of the chores about the place until it was time for him to go to
school. His father and his grandfather were farmers. Inbred in him, as
in most Boers, is an ardent love of country life and especially an
affection for the mountains. On more than one occasion he has climbed to
the top of Table Mountain, which is no inconsiderable feat.

There are two ways of appraising Smuts. One is to see him in action as
I did at Capetown, while Parliament was in session. The other is to get
him with the background of his farm at Irene, a little way station about
ten miles from Pretoria. Here, in a rambling one-story house surrounded
by orchards, pastures, and gardens, he lives the simple life. In the
western part of the Transvaal he owns a real farm. He showed his
shrewdness in the acquisition of this pro