"Oh! we all volunteered," he replied, "and a great job they had of it in selecting the men to come. So many wanted to come and so many were disappointed, and I can tell you that if they would only send them, there's thousands who would come. Why, to give you an idea of it, do you know there are men in the ranks who are worth thousands, and some of the highest families are represented in the war in the ranks?"

"How do you get on with the soldiers from home?"

"Oh, we get on first-class; but what we would like is more opportunity of mixing with them and becoming better acquainted. You see, there's so much work to be done that we don't get a chance to mix together. Down at the Modder where we did get a bit chummy, Tommy would have done anything for us. He would have given us the shirt off his back if we'd wanted it, and we can't help liking him, as the song used to say, because you can't beat him down. No matter in what circumstances you find him he's always in a good humour and ready for what's coming next. You can see him in rags that used to be in khaki, and you can see him just after he has received his kit-bag and he's always the same. He seems to have plenty of money and spends it just as readily as if he had the Bank of England behind him. But I think if you want to see him in one of his happiest moments, you want to look at him when he is carrying a bag of bread and other treasures out of Bloemfontein."

"Then you Australians rather like Tommy?" I said.

"Like him? Of course we do. We've fought alongside of him, and what we want is more of him—that's all. You know, we want to show the world that we are all one, no matter what part of the world we Britons come from, and we're going to do it, too."

I was very pleased with my new-found friend and his outspoken way, and glad to have got rid of an idea that the Colonials didn't take well to Tommy.

CHAPTER XXIII
A Complete Newspaper

Full of matter which is no longer a tenth as interesting as it was there and then.

Number 21 of The Friend, dated April 10th, was a splendid number for Bloemfontein, and for the time, yet there is nothing to reproduce except an Australian's trooper's poetic salute to the eucalyptus, or gum-trees, that he recognised as fellow inhabitants of his distant land, whence they have been sent to cheer the waste places of California, the American Plains, and all South Africa.

Three solid columns of the paper were justly given up to Mr. Kipling's exposure in the London Times of the treacherous element of the Cape population, and its relations with those neighbours who are honest and loyal subjects of the Queen and with the army. Two columns of "Reuter's" despatches from abroad, one column of similar telegrams from South African points, and a notable leader by Mr. Perceval Landon on Mr. Kipling's article, made up the contents of the reading page.