le vowed that
if ever the hat went round for the Colonel they would not put a cent in
it, so help them! How much the Colonel was perturbed by this dire threat
there was no evidence to show. But a Proclamation was soon
forthcoming--which would certainly not conduce to the filling of the
hat. His (the Colonel's) proclamations had for the most part made us
swear by him; the one of which I now speak made us swear _at_ him! And
our language will be pardoned when I explain that the decree struck at
the one commodity it was in our power to get enough of. There _was_ such
a commodity, and that was bread. Until this atrocious edict saw the
light it had been our privilege to, enjoy _carte blanche_ in bread. It
was the last of our privileges--too simple and sacred, one would have
thought, for even an autocrat to have dared to trample on.

Flour, meal, Kafir corn, mealies, etc., were also to be controlled by
the socialists (they had red flags up); but the main insult, added to
the injury already inflicted by the quality of the State loaf, lay in
the suggestion that we ate too much bread, and that we were in future to
be limited to _fourteen ounces per diem_! Already limited to nothing at
all in vegetables and to a glorified _bite_ of beef, it was not
surprising that an angry chorus of protest was raised against the
Government. People asked, in their indignation, if they really lived in
a British Colony? Could such an interference with the freedom of the
subject be brooked for five minutes? Of course the query was beside the
question, but everybody was beside himself with rage. Where was the
Military despotism to stop? In the meantime, while men in the street
raved, shrewd housewives were acting. At the first note of alarm they
had started scouring up their pans and determined to encourage thrift by
baking their own bread. They would thus supplement their allowance of
the readymade article, and by the same token snap their fingers at that
"ass" _in excelsis_--Martial Law. But they reckoned without their host;
there is nothing asinine about _Martial_ Law; a closer perusal of the
proclamation would have taught them that Kekewich and Gorle were old
soldiers; that anybody buying meal or flour could not buy bread, and
_vice versa_. Even "mealie-pap," _ad lib._, we had perforce to forego;
the "Law" allowed it but once a day. Then there was a worse feature than
this limitation indicated. "Mealie-pap" without milk was bad enough;
minus suga