On losing sight of her father, Brenda wanted to try and follow him; and Wilfred, the patriot, although he hated Scarse, and would gladly have seen him ducked, could not but sympathize with the girl's anxiety. So, extricating themselves from the crowd, they struggled downward toward the lower part of the square. There a knot of talkers attracted their attention. "Wot I say is, Why does Rhodes want to fight a lot of 'ard-working coves like them Boers?" said one begrimed ruffian. "They're the same as us, ain't they?" "No, they ain't," grunted his neighbor. "They won't give Englishmen votes, an' we made their bloomin' country, we did." "I 'old by Gladstone, I tell you----" "Garn! you and your Gladstone; he'd ha' given away Windsor Castle if he cud." "Ho! Wot price Majuba!" "Ah! we must wipe out that disgrace," said a clearer and apparently more highly-educated speaker. Then the fun began. Some abused Gladstone as the cause of all the trouble, others made extensive demands upon their vocabulary for a due definition of Mr. Chamberlain. It speedily became apparent that none of them knew what they were talking about. Wilfred laughed, and the begrimed one straightway resented his laughter. "We don't want no tall 'ats 'ere," he yelped. "No, you want sense," retorted Burton. But, unwilling to involve Brenda in a row, he pushed on. As they passed away they heard a scuffle, and looked back to see that the dirty man had at last his heart's desire, so far as to have found an antagonist. But even thus early in the game he was getting the worst of it. At length, having apparently had enough, he gave forth a lusty yell for "police," and was duly rescued in a battered condition, and still arguing. Brenda felt anxious. The mob all round was showing signs of restiveness. In another part of the square some pro-Boer orators spoke with more chance of a hearing. They drew the usual picture of a small toiling community, of unscrupulous capitalists, the worship of gold, the rights of the Boers to arrange affairs in their own house, and the iniquity of a mighty Empire crushing a diminutive State, wholly unable to defend itself. Furious at the falsehoods which he heard all around him, Wilfred lost his head altogether, and, despite all Brenda's entreaty, got up on the parapet and raised his voice.