While Yorke ate his breakfast the German, who was evidently glad to have someone to talk to, sat down on a table and smoked.
"I suppose," he said, "you have come from somewhere near Heidelberg?"
"No," Yorke replied, "I have come from the south. I don't know whether you know the country between the Klip River and Blesbok Spruit?"
"No, I have never been there."
"Ah, then, you would not know the farm! It is not very far from where the two rivers fall into the Vaal, twenty miles or so below Heidelberg."
"I suppose your people are with the Heidelberg commando?"
Yorke nodded.
"Well, I don't know much about war," the German said, "for I slipped away from home before my time came to join the army, and I am not likely to return; but it certainly seems to me queer that, though it is more than three months since the business began, you have not taken either Ladysmith, Kimberley, or Mafeking yet; and yet your people made sure that by this time they would be at Durban on one side, and Cape Town on the other. It has been badly managed."
"Very badly managed," Yorke agreed. "If it had been left to Joubert to do as he liked, things would have gone differently, but he was interfered with by Kruger, and Steyn, and all Kruger's people here. I was very sorry at first that I could not go with the others to Natal, but I begin to think I am better off at home than they are. Besides, after all it does not matter to me whether we drive the Rooineks out or not. As far as I can see they have done no harm; we get a lot more for our cattle now than we did before they came, and if they were all to go, prices would fall again."