2. Katinka van der Mauser (His Wife).
3. Reginald Talbot de Vere-Crœsus (English Cavalry Officer).
Scene: A Farm in the Free State. Pony saddled at the door. J. J. van der Mauser preparing to mount.
J. J. van der Mauser (Centre of Stage). Katinka! Katinka! Bring me the old rifle that is in the barn among the sheep-skins. The old muzzle-loading Boer rifle, with which my ancestor, the great Ten-britches van der Mauser shot the lion in the days of the Great Trek.
Katinka: Nay, Jan! Pause and reflect! 'Twill blow thy head off. It has not been fired these thirty years.
Jan: Nay, woman! I purpose not to fire it. I intend to hand it in to the British—I only wish they'd try to let it off! Then will I return speedily, provided with a pass, and go up into the laager to do a little Rooinek shooting. While I am gone, Katinka, be not afraid. The English will put a sentry on the farm so that not a blade of grass shall be touched, not an onion taken from the ground. Be diligent, and sell them all the butter you can.
Katinka: The proclamation says the price of butter is to be two-and-sixpence a pound!
Jan: Then don't take a penny less than three shillings and sixpence. If you run short of milk, drive in the cows of our neighbour Smith, who has fled to the English. And Katinka (whispers tenderly), if you see the Rooineks out in the open, don't stand anywhere near them, darling! You might get hit! You understand? Now, farewell!
(Proceeds to pull on an extra pair of breeches, and so goes off to the laager, while the band plays "My dear old Dutch.")
[Interval of some days, during which the British encamp near the farm, and Katinka sells them, at famine prices, every drop of milk and every pound of butter that the cows will yield, and every egg that the hens can be induced to lay.]