“Oh, rather!” answered the other, who could hardly speak for spluttering. “You’re not the only one, though, if the truth were known. You see it was all very well twenty years ago and all that to call him Oom Paul. But now the old man is rather sick of it. Only think, every dirty little Jew ‘winkler’ calling him ‘Oom.’ Besides, he’s a much bigger man now and likes to be treated with a certain amount of state.”
But not until he got safely home could Piet give full vent to his mirth, and then he literally laughed till he cried.
“You should have seen him, Anna,” he spluttered between his tears. “Oh, Aletta, you should have heard him. Telling the Ou’ Baas, so sweetly too, that he reminded him of an uncle of his whom he deeply revered. Oh, oh, you should have been there! I simply didn’t dare look up. I should have disgraced myself for ever if I had.”
“Well, it had its effect,” protested Colvin, who was laughing over the recollection almost as hard as Piet. “It smoothed his feathers at once.”
“Really? No, really did it?” cried Aletta, who for her part had gone off into rippling peals.
“Rather, it did,” confirmed Piet. “Oh, oh, oh! ‘Is nie jou Oom nie. Ik is die Presidént!’ Oh, oh, oh! I shall choke directly.”
And he very nearly did.
[a/]