“I don’t care whether you ought to know or not, but you played three characters only; and I will give you, if you like, every entrance and exit you made that night.” Barnato then proceeded to give the details of the performance, and Irving admitted that he was right.
Barnato himself gained a high reputation in Kimberley as Matthias. A very well-known South African was making a first visit to England and his friends, wishing to show him all the sights, booked seats for the Lyceum on a night when Irving was producing “The Bells.” “Oh, let’s go somewhere else,” said the colonist; “I have seen Barney Barnato as Matthias, and I do not want to see anyone else.” Barnato told this story to Irving, and the great actor replied: “Such is fame.”
The military instinct is very strong amongst the Zulus. Bishop Colenso was once telling a Zulu chief named Pakade that he was busy translating the Lord’s Prayer into Zulu, and was laboriously endeavouring to awaken the chief’s interest in the project when the latter impatiently replied: “Yes! Yes! That is all very good, but how do you make gunpowder?”
Mr. Barnato’s biographer, Mr. Harry Raymond, says that one evening after dinner at a well-known club an attempt was made to engage Barnato in a game of billiards with a good player with the intention of extracting some money from him in bets. Nothing loath—for he was fond of the game and played well, circumstances which were not known to the people there—an adjournment was made to the billiard-room. There every seat was rapidly filled up to watch the expected game, and his opponent said: “Shall we play for a fiver, Mr. Barnato?” “Yes, I don’t mind.” Several of those present then offered each to bet him a fiver he did not win. He gave a quick glance round, saw the eagerness for the fivers and a share in the spoil, and, turning to a friend who was with him, said: “Have you got any paper, Tom? Take everything they offer; I am going to make some money to-night. Put a fiver on for yourself—I shall win.” To the intense chagrin and disgust of the majority present, he did win, playing a very good game, and just running out with a little bit in hand.
In the year 1825, when Mr. Nathaniel Isaacs, the famous traveller, was in South Africa, he visited the great Zulu King Chaka. The latter enquired about the state of the political affairs in Europe and other parts of the world. Having been told something of the extent of the British Dominion and the overthrow of the French Empire of Napoleon at Waterloo, ten years before, this half-naked barbarian complacently remarked: “Yes, I see now, there are only two great chiefs in all the world: my brother, King George—he is King of all the Whites; and I, Chaka—I am King of all the Blacks.”