DOTS OR NO DOTS.
All about the New Stamp Issue.
BY MORTIMER MENPES.
How strange a thing it is that so small a matter as a general taste for collecting stamps should, as it were, elevate a man at a single bound into a position where his slightest tact at discrimination in detecting the difference of shades between two bits of paper of the same colour will sway and determine the destinies of a horde of fanatical collectors!
That a man should occupy so exalted a position was accidentally brought to my notice after a return to Bloemfontein from a run to the Cape, where I found the Market Square, the club, the hotels and the street corners grouped with people who appeared to be intensely interested in the discussion of some all-important subject. Thinking that some radical proclamation had been issued, I paused to listen, but instead of legal phrase and technical form greeting my ear, the only intelligible word which I could detect in the buzz which emanated from the centre of the group was "Dot."
I passed on to another group, where the same "dot" arrested my attention; then to a third, which was also "dotty," until, feeble and bewildered, I helplessly wandered about on the verge of an incurable "dottiness" myself.
Finally, I pulled myself together again and, blind to all danger, plunged into a group of "dotters," grasped one of them by the arm, and in reply to my appeals heard him hiss, as he roughly shook me off, "Surcharged stamps, you fool, misprinted, without dots." Then I understood. My curiosity was stimulated, I soon learned the subtle differences which add to or subtract value from the surcharged Free State stamps. Finally I became the proud possessor of a dotless one myself. That settled it; I became hopelessly "dotty" myself, and to the end of my natural days will always realise that affairs of State, literature, art, even money, are secondary to the importance of obtaining "the entire set," especially if they are from "the bottom row" and "dotless." This mania has taken possession of the entire army.
From Tommy to General, the last biscuit or a drink of whisky, or a pass to be out after 8 p.m. can be extracted after a dozen refusals by producing a dotless stamp.
Kruger could end this cruel war in an afternoon by simply sending out a dozen men mounted on swift horses, wearing white coats with the entire set without dots pasted on the back. These scouts should be unarmed and should ride in close to our lines and then turn round showing their backs. The moment the army would see the set, they would make a rush, and all the scouts would have to do would be to ride fast enough and in different directions, and by nightfall the Imperial forces would be hopelessly scattered, and lost in the boundless veldt. Kruger's scouts would be perfectly safe, for no one would dare to raise a rifle in their direction. Such an act might bring down a set; but imagine if you can the fate of the miscreant if one dotless stamp should be punctured or if—horrible thought!—a chance scattering of the lead should dot some of the precious bits of paper!
In my inquiries during the first stage of this disease, I found that Major O'Meara was the supreme authority on this subject. I found the Major seated in a small room of the National Bank sorting out from a huge collection the stamps which were to be surcharged. For three hours I watched him, as with wonderful skill and discrimination he picked out bits of paper which were obsolete and which an accidental surcharging would have made of untold value, and set the whole world of collectors into a palpitating hysteria of speculation, until finally catalogued and bought by some multi-millionaire bent upon ruining himself to appease his craze. That all the legally surcharged stamps are carefully catalogued in the Major's busy brain will doubtless surprise at some no distant date a few rascally speculators, who, possessing obsolete issues, have surreptitiously surcharged them, in the hope of creating a rarity to sell at fabulous prices. Leaving the Major's presence, I realised that the last stage of dotlessphobia had fastened itself on me, and, knowing that recovery is hopeless, have abandoned myself to full indulgence, hoping to derive at least some miserable satisfaction before the end. With this one reservation, I am determined never to surrender to the universal stamp collector's weakness of stealing. Others may walk uprightly through six days of the week about their ordinary affairs and turn aside on Sunday afternoon from the path of blindness to pilfer another collector's treasure while his face is turned away, out of politeness, to sneeze. But I; no, I shall never, never, no—I won't steal.
CHAPTER XXVII
A Notable Number
Captain Cecil Lowther joins the Wits and Poets again. A Report by Mr. Jenkins, who was "our Staff in himself."