During one of the Matabele wars, Cecil Rhodes was lying down by his wagon, reading a book, his companions having left him for some purpose or other, when a trooper came across from the laager and said, “Good day.” “Good day” replied Rhodes. “Have you got any fish?” asked the man. Rhodes tumbled to the situation at once. “No,” said he, “I am sorry to say I’ve got no fish.” “Got no fish,” said the trooper, “have you got any jam?” “No,” replied Rhodes, “I’m sorry to say I’m out of jam.” “You’ve got no fish, and got no jam; what have you got?” said the man. “You may as well ask that,” said Rhodes, “I’ve got precious little left, and what I have got they are trying to take away from me as fast as they can.” “I am sorry for that,” said the man, “but (looking at some six or eight books lying on the ground) you’ve got some books, I see, and (picking up one on Buddism) pretty deep subjects, too!” “Well,” said Rhodes, “I certainly do read a bit, that’s my recreation. You see, it’s pretty hard work selling fish and jam all day.” “I should think it must be,” said the man. “Well, I’m sorry for you, for you’re a civil-spoken kind of chap, and I’m still more sorry that you’ve got no fish or jam, but it can’t be helped—good day.” “Good day,” said Rhodes, and the man went back to the laager. One wonders, says Sir Lewis Michell, in narrating this anecdote, what the man’s feelings were when he saw Rhodes riding with Plumer the next morning at the head of the column, and discovered that the man he had mistaken for a purveyor of tinned stores to the troops was the greatest Englishman of modern times.
About thirty years ago, a certain Cape Governor had occasion to visit a small dorp in the northern part of the Cape Colony. This dorp consisted of about a dozen houses, mostly built of tin, but an enormous area of hill, vale and plain spread around it on every side. At the end of the address which was presented by the Mayor and Corporation, there was a request that the Governor might be pleased to sanction an allotment from the revenue of the Colony of some thousands sterling for the purpose of carrying out a complete system of municipal drainage. One of the houses composing the town stood on a broad eminence; the remaining structures occupied detached points in a rather swampy valley. “I wondered what he would say,” says Sir William Butler, who was present on the occasion in question as a member of the Governor’s staff, “when the time came for the Governor to reply.” “Gentlemen,” said the Governor, after thanking the municipality, “I entirely sympathise with you in your natural desire to have your promising town placed in a position in regard to its drainage and sanitary conditions which will enable it to fulfil the requirements of its undoubted future, but the scheme you propose would be a costly one, and the finances of the Colony are not for the moment too redundant. Would it not be less expensive if we were to move the town up to the top of that hill where the single house now stands. It would then practically drain itself.”
Once there was a slump in Johannesburg, and a deputation from the Rand went to interview President Kruger in Pretoria. “Times are bad,” they said, and it was not their fault. The Government must do something for them. Oom Paul listened in silence, smoking. At last he took his pipe from his mouth, and replied: “Gentlemen, you remind me of a pet monkey I once had. He was very fond of me; he would never leave me alone. When anything happened that he did not like, he always ran to me. One winter’s night he was at my feet by the fire. Monkeys never sit quiet for long, and he kept twisting himself round about until at last he got his tail into the fire. He did it himself, gentlemen; I didn’t even know he was doing it, but all the same he turned and bit me in the leg.”
A certain smouser once visited a farmer, bought his wool, and after the wool had been weighed and the price per pound fixed, the smouser said: “So many pounds at so much comes to so much,” mentioning a sum about half the actual total. “No,” said the farmer, “it should be so much,” stating the real figure, and, to the smouzer’s amazement, produced a ready reckoner! With an air of surprise, the smouser said: “Let’s look at that book.” The farmer handed the book to the smouser and triumphantly pointed out the place. The smouser looked at the calculation, then turned to the title page and pointing to the date of publication, exclaimed, with an exultant laugh: “Why, you’ve got hold of last year’s ready reckoner,” and actually convinced the farmer that he had been swindled, not by the smouser, but by the man who had sold him the book!
A certain Frenchman, on hearing the news of the relief of Kimberley by General French, exclaimed: “Bon! Fashoda finds itself avenged. Behold, ze English are in the ze consomme, for ze French are in Kimberley.”