There was no need to explain who “she” was. But even while he was speaking “she” had awakened and was charging furiously down the street. The boy proposed that I should take his hand and run; but the suggestion did not appeal to me; so I turned and faced the foe. Ekang got behind me, and for further safety put his arms around my waist. She made a dash at him, but he circled around to the other side. Then began a gymnastic performance of which I was literally the centre, the two revolving about me, first one way, then the other, the boy’s arms still around my waist, and both of them keeping up a lively and impressive conversation, which, with the African, is inseparable from action. If I have the slightest degree of that personal dignity that would seem to be the right of a man who believes the first chapter of Genesis, neither mother nor son recognized it. Failing to lay hold of him in this manner she then tried to catch his hands at my waist; but here I asserted my rights and kept her at full arms’ length. When I told her that I really could not have her so near to me, she replied: “I’m not after you [which greatly relieved me]: I’m after my boy; for I’m his mother.” I said that it was impossible that she could be his mother; that mothers love their children, and that she talked as if she wanted to kill this child; and seeing that he was one of my favourite boys I must take him away from her cruelty. A long and trying altercation followed, despite the late hour, and a hard day’s work. At last she was so far reduced, or so sleepy that it was only a matter of judging how much soap it would take to complete the victory. It took nearly half a bar; but it sealed a strong friendship. I could almost write a poem on laundry soap. I had never before imagined the intimate relation of soap and sentiment. Even in our own land it ranks about next to godliness: but in Africa godliness usually takes a second place to laundry soap. My own method was to try godliness first and then to follow up the effect with laundry soap. One mother, who was not in town when her husband let me have their boy, having heard upon her return that the boy had gone, immediately followed us in a canoe, and overtook us at the next town. She came close to the launch and, shrieking like a maniac, took a rank poison which she had provided for the purpose, and holding it up in her hand declared that if I would not deliver the boy to her instantly she should swallow the poison. I parleyed with her a while until I felt that she probably meant what she said. After death, she assured me, she would haunt me and cause me all kinds of trouble as long as I lived. My wives would fall in love with other men and would run away; as fast as I could marry others they also would leave me. This was an appalling prospect for a single man; so I gave her the boy.