"Well, then, I will have some water, and when I have drunk half of it you can pour a little whisky in the rest for yourself." "Whisky bad thing, baas, but very nice." "It may be nice in small quantities for those who like it. I don't like it. I never touch it if I can help it. It is the ruin of half your people, and you know it is against the law to give it to you." "Against the law, baas but we can always find plenty of men ready to sell it for good money." "They are bad men, Peter. The harm they do is very great. That is why so many of your people are in rags, though they can earn pay when they are willing to work. They will only labour for three or four days, and then spend pretty well all they have earned on spirits, and be drunk the next three." "That is true, baas. Peter do that very often. Big fool, Peter! Often tells himself so when he gets sober. But when he gets money he smells spirit, then he makes fool of himself again." "Well, you had better make up your mind to give it up altogether, Peter. You are getting good pay now, and ought to have a lot of money saved by the end of the war--enough to go back to your own people and build a kraal, and buy cattle, and exchange some of them for a wife." "That true, baas. Peter will try not to be big fool again." "Well, then, you had better begin to try at once, and drink your water without mixing whisky with it." Peter's face fell, and he heaved a long sigh. "Now, just suppose, Peter, that at Boshof you had opened that bottle of whisky. I have no doubt that if you had begun it you would have drunk almost all of it, and by the time you got sober you would have found me a long way towards Pretoria." "That is just what I said to myself," Peter said with a laugh. "I take that bottle out of my pocket four or five times and look at him. But each time I took it out I said to myself, 'Peter, if you take out that cork you know what it will be. You will get drunk, and the Boers will carry your baas away.'" "Well, Peter, you fought the battle and mastered yourself, and there is no reason why you should not do it again. It is better to be a free man than a slave." "How slave, master?" Peter asked puzzled. "Every man is a slave who allows himself to be mastered by drink. It is of no use to say, 'I will only have a drop.' It is ten times more difficult to stop then than it is at first. Now, Peter, you have done me a great service--a very great service, but I shall have done you quite as good a one if I can persuade you to give up drink altogether. Then when I part from you, I shall be always able to think of you as doing well among your own people, instead of working in rags somewhere for a day's pay." "Peter will try, master; he will try hard. Every time he smells gin, he will say to himself, 'Baas Yorke tell me, that ruin me if I touch it; and him say true, I will not touch it.'" "That is right, Peter." "Shall I smash the bottle now, baas?"