"Klein Baas (meaning 'Little Boss')," he said, in his pathetic earnestness forgetting to address me by my native name, "Mzaan Bakoor," "you have been wearing the trousers all day. Don't you think it is my turn to wear them? We are both indunas (leaders) of our impi; it is not right that one should be better than the other. Let me wear the trousers until sundown and show our men that we are brothers-in-arms!" This seemed reasonable to me. Sibijaan and I had shared our joys and woes for several years and there was no reason for my refusing him the honor of wearing the wonderful corduroys. We changed. I put on his beads and he got into my corduroys. Then came a perfect exhibition of the kaffir temperament. Sibijaan became insufferably arrogant. He gave orders to our impi, and for a moment I thought he was going to try and command me. The more he lorded it over the others, the more sullen and angered they became. Of course the inevitable happened. Several of the little lads demanded that they be allowed their turn at wearing the trousers, the badge of authority, as it were. Sibijaan refused. "No, no, you cannot wear them!" he shouted. "Now I am a man; I am almost white! I am a man and you are little boys! Who am I that I should take notice of such dirt?" But he did. This last insult was too much. The indignant lads attacked Sibijaan, and in a second there was a squirming mass of black legs, arms, and bodies, with my precious trousers in danger of destruction. We all had assegais, or short stabbing spears, and regardless of these I dashed into the mêlée. Death or wounds were little things compared to the loss of those trousers. When the fight was over I had been stabbed in the eye, but I had the trousers! Practically every boy had at least one wound, and one of the little fellows died before we got him back to the house where he could have attention. Owing to lack of proper medical care my eye was allowed to get well without expert attention and will always show the effects of this trouser-fight. From then on, however, I wore the trousers. I shall always remember my father's comment on this happening. He asked me how the row had started and who had stabbed the boy to death. It was practically impossible to determine the latter, and I explained why. He listened in his quiet way and then gave me a talking to. "Yours is the guilt for the death of that boy," he said. "You forgot you were a Boer and lowered yourself to the level of a Mapor! When you gave Sibijaan the trousers you became as the dirt under his feet. White men wear clothes; kaffirs go naked. Does my son, the son of Slim Gert O'Neil, want to be a nigger?" Only in one other way did Sibijaan threaten my supremacy as the undisputed leader of our impi. This was due to his extraordinary knack in handling clay in the making of models of all kinds.