t to me,
for, after all, it let me into so much of the inner life of these
strange new surroundings. Presently the young hopeful, looking up from
a large plateful of oatmeal porridge and milk, observed--

"I say, Brian, let's go down to Zwaart Kloof this morning and try for a
bushbuck ram."

"Well, I don't know. Yes. Perhaps Mr Holt would like to try his luck.
What do you say, Holt?"

I said I'd like nothing better, but for the trifling drawback that I had
no gun--being only a shipwrecked mariner who had come away with nothing
but the clothes he stood up in. But this was speedily over-ruled.
There were plenty of guns in the house. No difficulty about that.

"Can you shoot, Mr Holt?" said the youngster, planting both elbows on
the table, and eyeing me with rather disdainful incredulity.

"Well, yes, I can shoot," I said. "Moderately, that is."

"But you're out from England," went on the cub, as though that settled
the matter.

"George, you little ass, shut up, and go and tell them to saddle up Bles
and Punch for us," said Brian. "You can ride Jack."

A volume of expostulation in favour of some other steed having been
silenced by Brian in quiet and peremptory fashion, the hopeful went out.

"I'm afraid you'll find George rather a spoilt boy, Mr Holt," said
Beryl. "He and Iris seem to get their own way more than they ought.
They are the little ones, you see."

Of course I rejoined that it was quite natural--reserving my own
opinion. In the case of the little girl it was candid: in the other--
well "boy" to me is apt to spell horror; but a spoilt boy, and just a
boy of George Matterson's age, well--to fit him, my vocabulary has never
yet been able to invent an adequate superlative.

"You'd better have a shot gun, Holt," said Brian, as we started. "I
always use one in thick bush; it's all close shooting."

He handed me a double Number Twelve bore, of first-rate make and poise,
and kept in first-rate order too, and some treble A cartridges.

"You won't use all those. You'll be lucky if you get two fair and
square shots," he remarked.

"Good luck, Mr Holt," called out Beryl after us.

I began to feel nervous. I was only an ordinary shot, and of this form
of sport was, of course, utterly without experience--and said as much.

"You only shoot tame pheasants in England, don't you, Mr Holt?" said
George, in a tone that made me wish I could turn him into one of the
fowl aforesaid. Could it really be