In the seventies, when Sir Charles Warren was in Kimberley, he had tea one evening with a Mrs. Barber. There were some nice cakes, and he ate a good many. Then some more visitors came in, and he went away. Mrs. Barber was then taking care of a meercat belonging to Sir Charles. After he had left, and whilst she was feeding the meercat, she said to her guests: “Bother that brute Warren, he eats such a lot.” “Of course,” says Sir Charles (in his book “On the Veld in the Seventies”), it very soon came round to me that Mrs. Barber had called me a brute because I ate so many of her cakes. I took it as one of the usual stories afloat, but when I next saw her I told her what had been imputed to her. At first she was very indignant, but suddenly she said: “But now I recollect I really did say it. I call the meercat ‘Warren,’ and was abusing it for eating so much!”
Mr. “Barney” Barnato once related the following story in the Christmas number of the “Pelican.” When he first landed in Cape Town, en route for the Diamond Fields, he put up at the Masonic Hotel. There he met an individual clad in gorgeous raiment, ornamented with a profusion of large diamonds, who asked his name and where he was going to, and on hearing that the Fields were his destination, endeavoured to change his resolution, saying that he had himself cleared out all the diamonds that were there. Of course, “Barney” was a little cast down at this, but still stuck to his determination to see for himself. Years after he met the same stranger in Johannesburg. The stranger asked him how he managed to become chairman of the De Beers Company. “By not taking your advice,” was the prompt reply. The story was afterwards classed by its author amongst his many successful works of fiction.
Once a well-known individual borrowed £10 from Mr. Barnato at Johannesburg, and, although asked for the money several times, always put off payment. One day “between the chains” Barnato said openly to some friends:—“Mind you don’t lend —— any money. He has £10 of mine, and it is time he was stopped.” The man heard of this, and coming up to him said:—“I hear you have been talking about me?” “Yes; I want my money.” “Well, here is your £10, and don’t talk about me any more.” A short time afterwards the same man asked Barnato for £25. “No, can’t do it,” was the reply. “Why not? I don’t owe you anything.” “I know you don’t, but you’ve disappointed me once, and I won’t risk another disappointment.”
About the year 1877, Sir Charles Warren was travelling in a post-cart from Cape Town to Kimberley and had as a fellow-passenger a very taciturn young man who was diligently studying his prayer-book. Warren’s curiosity was roused, but, being of a reserved nature, said nothing. Eventually his curiosity overcame his reserve, and he asked the young man what he was reading. “The Thirty-nine Articles” was the reply, and in this manner the two got to know each other. The young man was Cecil Rhodes, on his way back from Oxford to Kimberley for the long vacation, and he was characteristically using his time in the post-cart before he plunged again into the midst of diamonds and finance, in learning the Thirty-nine Articles for his next examination at Oxford.
Early in the eighties General Gordon was employed by the Cape Government (of which the late Mr. Sauer was then a member as Secretary for Native Affairs) to go to Basutoland to arrange terms of peace with the Basutos. Rhodes was also in Basutoland at that time, and the two men saw a good deal of each other. During one of their conversations, Gordon said to Rhodes:—“You always contradict me. I never met such a man for his own opinion. You think your views are always right and everyone else wrong.” Rhodes determined to get his own back. Noticing that the Basutos were making much of Gordon and very little of Sauer, he said to Gordon:—“Do you know, I have an opinion that you are doing very wrong. You are letting these Basutos make a great mistake. They take you for a great man, look up to you, and pay no attention to Sauer, whereas he is the great man here, and you are only in his employment. You ought to explain to the Basutos the truth, that he is somebody and you are nobody.” This was said jokingly, but Gordon took it quite seriously. At the next indaba, accordingly, Gordon stepped out before the chiefs, and, pointing to Mr. Sauer, explained, to their astonishment:—“You are making a mistake in taking me for the great man of the Whites. I am only his servant, only his dog; nothing more.” After the indaba was over, he said to Rhodes:—“I did it because it was the right thing—but it was hard, very hard.”