uch as I have told you. For "Tommy" is no fool; he is not half such a
braggart, either, as some of the Jingoes, who shout and yell, but never
take a hand in the real fighting; those wastrels of England, who are at
home with a pewter of beer in their hands--hands that never did, and never
will, grip a rifle.

Whilst at Trummel I took advantage of a couple of days' camping to go out
three miles from camp to have a look at a diamond mine. I found a
red-whiskered Dutchman in charge, who knew less English than I knew Dutch,
and as my Dutch consists of about twelve words we did not do much in the
conversational line; but I made him understand by pantomimic telegraphy
that I wanted to have a look round, to size up things. He took me to a
"dump," where the ore at grass was stored, and converted himself into a
human stone-cracking machine for my benefit, until I had seen all that I
wanted to see in regard to the "ore at grass." He was very much like mine
managers the world over--very ready to play tricks on anyone he considered
"green" at the business. It was not his fault that he did not know that I
had been a reporter on gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, and coal mines for
about twenty years.

Thinking, doubtless, that I was like unto the ordinary city fellow who
comes at rare intervals to look at a mine, he made me a present of a piece
of rock with some worthless garnets in it, also a sample of country rock
pregnant with mundic; the garnets and the mundic glittered in the sunshine.
I rose to the bait, as I was expected to do, and intimated that I would
like a lot of it. This delighted the Dutchman, and he beamed all over his
expansive face, all the time cursing me for the second son of an idiot, as
is the way with mine managers. But he stopped grinning before the afternoon
wore out, for I set him climbing and clambering for little pieces of mundic
and tiny patches of garnets in all the toughest places I could find in that
mine, and went into ecstasies over each individual piece, until I had quite
a load of the rubbish. Then I intimated gently that I would be back that
way when the war was over, and would surely send my Cape cart for them if
he would be good enough to mind them for me. I fancy an inkling of the
truth dawned in that Dutchman's soul at last, for he made no further
reference to either garnets or mundic. I satisfied myself with a sample of
the matrix in which diamonds are found, and also with a specimen of the
coun