But, as I have said, "Tommy" is inscrutable. I stepped one day into a German tobacconist's across the street from, and farther along than, the Club, and found it packed by soldiers who were being served by an insolent German with a portrait of ex-President Steyn in his coat lapel. "Take that picture out of your button-hole," said I. "What do you mean by wearing a thing like that when you are under British rule, and have been both protected and generously treated?" "I vill vear vot I shoose," said he. I made a mental promise to see that he did not wear that emblem much longer, and then turning to the soldiers I said, "Men, did you not see what this man is wearing? Why do you spend your money on a man whose sympathies are with the Boers? Give his shop the cold shoulder, and he will soon see that he is making a mistake." The appeal was in vain. The men instantly began to look very uncomfortable. They rolled their eyes up to the ceiling or pinned their gaze on the floor. No one said a word or even shot a glance of approval in my direction. They did not care. Tommy does not care--never cares--about anything, apparently. I tried to keep my promise. Search was made for that tobacconist, but he never served behind his counter after that visit of mine. He saved the military the trouble of sending him to Capetown. Lively days were those for rebels and irreconcilables. The men who had most ardently furthered the cause of the Bond and the Transvaal war party, and who had the indecency to loiter in the town, were quickly weeded out and sent to the Boer prison camp near Capetown. If we could not always tell who were our friends, these mischievous wretches were worse off, for, ofttimes, their old neighbours, tired of the war and awake to the folly of keeping it up, pointed them out to the military, and retailed their nauseous histories. "I feel a little like a lieutenant of Fouche," said one correspondent to me. "I had pointed out to me a former editor of one of the local papers whose pen was used with vitriol and who did as much as any man to degrade and spoil this little country. I was told that he is still talking angrily and abusively of us, and I was indignant. I mentioned the case to a prominent military officer and in three hours the man was a prisoner on his way to Capetown. I feel as if I was living in Paris in the French revolution--very creepy and uncomfortable. I shall keep my discoveries of such rascals to myself after this."