Rhodes and Tony were inseparable. Upon one occasion Tony accompanied him when he was commanded by Queen Victoria to lodge at Sandringham. While there Rhodes asked Tony what time he could get breakfast, whereupon the servant replied:
"Royalty does not breakfast, sir, but you can have it in the dining-room at half past nine." Tony seemed to know everything.
Throughout Rhodesia I found many of Rhodes' old associates who affectionately referred to him as "The Old Man." I was able to collect what seemed to be some new Rhodes stories. A few have already been related. Here is another which shows his quickness in capitalizing a situation.
In the days immediately following the first Matabele war Rhodes had more trouble with concession-hunters than with the savages, the Boers, or the Portuguese. Nearly every free-lance in the territory produced some fake document to which Lobengula's alleged mark was affixed and offered it to Rhodes at an excessive price.
One of these gentry framed a plan by which one of the many sons of Lobengula was to return to Matabeleland, claim his royal rights, and create trouble generally. The whole idea was to start an uprising and derange the machinery of the British South Africa Company. The name of the son was N'jube and at the time the plan was devised he held a place as messenger in the diamond fields at Kimberley. By the system of intelligence that he maintained, Rhodes learned of the frame-up, the whereabouts of the boy, and furthermore, that he was in love with a Fingo girl. These Fingoes were a sort of bastard slave people. Marriage into the tribe was a despised thing, and by a native of royal blood, meant the abrogation of all his claims to the succession.
Rhodes sent for N'jube and asked him if he wanted to marry the Fingo girl. When he replied that he did, the great man said: "Go down to the DeBeers office, get £50 and marry the girl. I will then give you a job for life and build you a house."
N'jube took the hint and the money and married the girl. Rhodes now sent the following telegram to the conspirator at Bulawayo:
"Your friend N'jube was divided between love and empire, but he has decided to marry the Fingo girl. It is better that he should settle down in Kimberley and be occupied in creating a family than to plot at Bulawayo to stab you in the stomach."
This ended the conspiracy, and N'jube lived happily and peacefully ever afterwards.
Rhodes was an incorrigible imperialist as this story shows. Upon one occasion at Bulawayo he was discussing the Carnegie Library idea with his friend and associate, Sir Abe Bailey, a leading financial and political figure in the Cape Colony.