At Cape Town we arranged to have an observation-car attached to the train for his special convenience as far as Johannesburg, and thence to Pretoria. This too, of course, was in the nature of an advertisement; to make people talk, and attract attention, it being pretended that his immense size precluded his passing through the door of an ordinary car, or along the corridor.
ARRIVAL IN JOHANNESBURG OF CARLTON, HIS GIANT, AND HIS DWARF
From Pretoria we went to Durban, and the stationmaster at the former place informed us that no observation-car was available for this part of the journey. By this time “Scotty” had begun to believe that he really couldn’t get into an ordinary car, or squeeze himself along an ordinary corridor, and he was quite upset and angry at being denied his usual roomy and luxurious special car.
“I can’t possibly do it,” he wailed, when the station officials urged him to at least try to enter the train in the usual way.
“Well,” exclaimed the stationmaster at last, “you will have to get in here then.”
The “here” was an open “Kaffir truck,” used only by the natives, and half full at the time with about as malodorous a collection of niggers as anyone would wish to see.
“Come on,” said the stationmaster, “the train is just going to start. In you go.”
But “Scotty” wasn’t having any. One look, one sniff, sufficed. He ran like a deer along the platform, and jumped into the ordinary compartment where we were with remarkable agility, and without the least difficulty.
We had another good joke with “Scotty” in Johannesburg. An enterprising Jew tailor advertised forty-shilling suits for sale, and a day or two after we arrived I called at his shop and selected the cloth for a “made-to-measure” suit “for a friend.” “He’s a big chap, you know,” I said. “No difference at all, sir,” answered the tailor, “big men, or small men, the price is just the same—forty shillings.”