Steve was by no means a paragon of goodness at all times—no boy ever is. He loved mischief as much as any other boy. We do not believe in the perfect hero. Every boy and man, as well as girl and woman, has his or her faults. Steve’s greatest fault was a keen sense of the ludicrous, which often led him into mischief; besides he loved mischief for its own sweet sake. He, one night, nearly had to sleep in the lock-up through his mischievous pranks. He and a companion, thinking it a pity not to make the best use of a fine moonlight night, proceeded to prepare for a game of snake. To the reader, who has never had the pleasure and excitement to play snake, I will explain how it is done.
A dark coloured strip of cloth is obtained in the shape and size of a fine large healthy snake. To one end of this artificial snake the end of a thin and almost invisible string is tied. The longer the string the safer the operation is.
Well, Steve and his companion manufactured just such a snake. They laid the snake on one side of the street in the regulation way. That is in the shape a snake is supposed to delight in assuming, viz., curled up in a zigzag form. Then they took the further end of the string to the opposite side of the street, crept through a hole in the hedge, taking their end of the string with them, and watched their opportunity. Presently a man came down the street, walking jauntily along as if he feared neither man nor devil; but as soon as he is in a line with the snake the fun commences. The first thing our peaceful citizen is aware of is a snake entangled with, and curling between, his legs, in a most lively fashion (operated by the string of course). Who is going to fight a snake of such a size in the uncertain moonlight, and unarmed too? Not he! no fear! So the only result was a yell, a whoop, and a mighty jump, and our peaceful citizen disappears round the first corner with long record-beating strides, leaving the destruction of the snake to the next comer. Of course, as soon as the victim is out of earshot, Steve and his companion are holding their sides, laughing at the jolly fun. The snake is soon replaced and the fun recommences. After sundry victims had afforded copious fun to the mischievous operators, they began to think it rather slow waiting for customers, so they started walking up the street in search of the slow-coming victims. The fun was lively and brisk for some time, but they reached the summit of their enjoyment when they frightened a troop of servant girls, accompanied by their beaux, out for a walk. The troop scattered all over the street, howling, yelling and screaming, fit to wake the dead. They did wake someone from his sleep, who was not quite dead yet—the night watchman. Now this night watchman was not a bird to be caught by chaff twice. He had seen this trick before. He caught up the snake, and, following the line up, soon came to the hiding youths. But if he thought that he was going to gain promotion by catching these night-birds he was mightily mistaken, for these slippery gents crushed their way through the hedge lining the street into a garden, and climbing hedge after hedge, from one garden into the other, until they came to another street, easily escaped, and walked quietly home, minus their snake, which had fallen into the hands of the watchman. Of course this spice of danger made the fun all the greater.
Steve and his friends had one grand playground. It was on the edge of the town on the river bank. There they would congregate of an afternoon and indulge in all the different kinds of games dear to a boy’s heart. Steve was one of the youngest of the boys who met here, and therefore was not as yet initiated into all the crafts of the band. One night, while playing cricket at this spot, Steve’s cousin and namesake—a boy easily led astray and into mischief, vacillating and weak principled, of which more will be seen further on—came to him, and, after leading him on one side, said in English (which, the reader must understand, is a foreign language to Steve, his mother’s tongue being Dutch, or rather Afrikander, and he was only just beginning to learn English at school).
‘I say, Steve, do you want to smoke?’
‘Smoke? Smoke? What is that?’
‘Rook, rook!’ replied his cousin.
‘Oh, rook! I don’t know. Is it nice?’
‘Oh, yes; come and try.’
Of course the policy of his elder companions in asking Steve to join them was to make him participate in their stealthy practice, and thus incriminate him, to prevent him from getting them into trouble by telling anyone about it, by which means their parents might come to hear of it, which, of course, would mean severe punishment to them. Steve’s cousin led him into a dense bush on the river bank, which he had never explored as yet, therefore he was surprised to see his cousin part the bushes and lead him into a large but thoroughly concealed opening among the bushes. The overhanging branches made it a nearly rainproof retreat. Here Steve found about half-a-dozen members of the secret smoking club. After a look round, our hero was offered a smoke, which he accepted, and was soon puffing away at—what does the uninitiated reader think?—a piece of ratan, which was one of the first stages in learning the art of smoking in this particular band; the porous wood of the ratan, or cane, serving as a good conductor of the smoke from the burning end. Of the whole band gathered here, only one was advanced enough to indulge in the real article, viz., tobacco; the rest were all smoking one, or another, of the different substitutes for tobacco known to the rising generation. I suppose the manly reader who has been brought up in a proper and an enlightened manner has learned to smoke with the usual cigarette, made up of Turkish, or mixed tobacco. But these youths, sons of more or less poor parents, being allowed no pocket money, had to satisfy themselves with the best substitutes for tobacco they could discover; and they showed a rare genius in discovering different cheap articles to serve their purpose, amongst which were such things as pumpkin stalk, cane, leaves of various trees, and various similar rubbish. All this is vulgar is it not? Yet I can assure you it is not as bad as it sounds. It produces plenty of the chief thing desired—smoke!