"War Inevitable—Transvaal Bristling with Guns and Loaded to the Nozzle with War Stores—Milner and Kruger No Nearer a Settlement—Sullen and Contemptuous Treatment of British Outlander." ... And so on.
And if war came, if England must do this ugly thing, fulfil her bitter and terrible task, then what about such as this young outlander here, this outcast from home and goodly toil and civilized conditions, this sickly froth of the muddy and dolorous stream of lower England? So much withdrawn from the sources of the possible relief, so much less with which to deal with their miseries—perhaps hundreds of millions, mopped up by the parched and unproductive soil of battle and disease and loss.
He glanced at the paper again. "Britons Hold Your Own," was the heading of the chief article. "Yes, we must hold our own," he said, aloud, with a sigh. "If it comes, we must see it through; but the breakfasts will be fewer. It works down one way or another—it all works down to this poor little devil and his kind."
"Now, what's your name?" he asked.
"Jigger," was the reply.
"What else?"
"Nothin', y'r gryce."
"Jigger—what?"
"It's the only nyme I got," was the reply.
"What's your father's or your mother's name?"