When we get within "fixed sights" it's ten to one the blighter's gone, And an absent-bodied beggar we shall find 'im, For 'e mounts 'is 'orse an' offs it when 'e finds us comin' on, An' e' never leaves a drop o' drink be'ind 'im. _Pile arms! Lie down! Now let the Transport come! (Am I 'ungry and thirsty? Wait till I let you see!) Bully beef and rooty, and somebody's pinched my rum. Pass your tin, for there's nothing to drink but tea, tea, tea!_ There's a chap called Wilfrid Lawson as is always on the squeak, An' 'e turns the liquor question inside out; But a bloke can do a gallon--if the tiddley's fairly weak-- Without actually going on the shout. But the absent-bodied tippler feels a temporary check When 'e tastes a kind of something to remind him, There's a Boer up the river with a stone around 'is neck 'As a filter what old Cronje's left be'ind 'im. _Fill mine! Mine too! (Smells like a bloomin' drain!) Fill at the nearest water, spite of the M.F.P. Bully beef and rooty, and something's give me a pain, Pass your tin, for there's nothing to drink but tea, tea, tea!_ Don't you fancy I'm a-grousin'. You can look me in the face An' judge if I'm a coward or a cur, When I tells you 'ow I scrambled up each blood-an'-thunder place Without any 'esitation or demur. Still, your absent-bodied comrade's got a thirst what's run to waste, And 'e'll show you in the future, when you find 'im Back in Wellington or Chelsea, as 'e's not forgot the taste Of the beer what 'e's at present left be'ind 'im. _Wayo! 'Ere's luck! Drink to your sweet-'eart dear (Fifty thousand 'orse and foot, moderate drinkers we), Wait till the war is over, then for the pint o' beer, Pass your tin, for there's nothing to drink but tea, tea, tea!_ CHAPTER XXI LOOT AND LURID CRAZES _A chapter in which we also tell of a modest Prince and a gallant Adventurer._ "THE FRIEND" contained notices of Kruger sovereigns and Transvaal pennies for sale, of Boer rifles and saddles, but none of the postage stamps of the former Free State or the newly surcharged ones in use by the Army. Though Transvaal pennies fetched twenty-five shillings and were in great demand, the real enthusiasm of collectors was for postage stamps, and officers and others were busy as bees buying stamps and having them erased to make them the more valuable. South Africa is as bare and barren a place for collectors, and even for the modest traveller who wishes for merely one trifling souvenir, as can be imagined. The war provided some trophies in the way of shells and Mauser rifles, but outside these there was nothing except, perhaps, the empty ostrich eggs to be found in every Boer house--and also to be found everywhere else in the civilised world.