"It'll cost you a hundred million pounds," I answered. "God knows how many men. And all because the said farmers claim the right to keep their own territory to themselves."
"A hundred million pounds!" he snorted.
"That's what Labouchere said the other night in the House," I retorted, with an undergraduate's faith in the figures and opinions of others.
"Oh, of course, if you believe a man like that! A man who frankly doesn't believe in the Empire. A Little Englander ..."
"I shouldn't be surprised if he was right," I said.
"Just for a few pounds you'd rather like to see us beaten," he cried. To this hour I recall with amazement the passions aroused by that war.
"I'm not in favour of a war against a free people conducted on behalf of Illicit Diamond Buyers. Besides the few pounds there are men's lives—and a little question of right and wrong."
"You ought to support your country right or wrong."
"I beg to differ," I said, and we carried the discussion heatedly back to Majuba and the question whether or no Mr. Gladstone's body should be exhumed and hung in chains.
The war was to come very near home before many weeks had passed. After Black Friday, Roger Dainton raised a troop of horse and took them out; Tom Dainton was given a university commission and followed a few weeks later. In the Easter term "The Earl of Chepstow" was painted out and "The Marquess Loring" substituted. The "damned farmers" had added a very pleasant, easy-going, undistinguished man to the lengthening list of casualties.