Two titled ladies had been the last guests of that mess. I wonder what they thought when they realised how their idols of the Guards were living. And what they would have thought had they farther realised that these officers were really feeling up to their knees in clover, being vastly better off than they had been at any time in the previous five or six months. When they were enjoying the serious phases of campaigning--out on the veldt in tents, or oftener still with no shelter at all--the ladies would have found them just as spirited and gay--except that no ladies could ever have found them at all or ventured where they were. Those men of the Guards have long been called the "London Pets" and "stay at homes" and "feather-bed soldiers," but they very quickly lived down their nicknames in South Africa. There nobody petted them; they had no beds (or even tents) between Modder of evil memory and Koomati Poort some six or seven months distant, in time, nor did they manage to get sent home--or want to do so, either. Lord! what brave chaps they are! and what fighters! I saw them fight at Belmont, at Modder, and at Maghersfontein, and I know. Through all the killing and wounding and sickness, the forty-four miles of marching in one spell of twenty-two hours, the half-rations, the tropic heat and the intense cold, the officers were ever jocular and spirited. One said to me, as he pointed at Maghersfontein Kopje, "Set a brewery up on top of that and my regiment will take the place in a romp." But the most characteristic anecdote I have to tell of one of these West-end London dandies is told by himself in a letter he sent to me: "It is cold and wet here now. I have got a bad attack of lumbago, and it took me ten minutes to straighten up and get on my feet when I woke this morning. I went off on outpost duty, and some Boers began sniping at my men until we could not put up with it any longer, when I gave the order to rush over to where they were and do them up. The devils ran away before we could kill them. I am sorry you are down with that leg. You should be here, enjoying all the fun." We published the sixth of Mr. Kipling's fables in this number, among scores of articles most interesting there and then, but not repeatable to advantage here and now. * * * * * THE FRIEND. (_Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force._) No. 13.] BLOEMFONTEIN, SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1900. [Price one penny. FABLES FOR THE STAFF.[14] [Footnote 14: Copyrighted; used here by permission.] BY RUDYARD KIPLING. VI. An Intelligence Officer, meeting a strayed Kaffir without visible Means of Subsistence, reprobated him for a Spy and Forthwith cast him into Jail, where he languished for two Days. At the Expiration of his Incarceration the Kaffir fell into the hands of a Discerning Colonial who filled him with Cape Smoke and engaged him in idle Persiflage for three Hours.