Tales from the Veld

“They were friends, then, after all?”

“You wait, sonny – jes’ keep still an’ wait. Arter a time they began to talk. Then it came out that the half-caste was on some mission from the head chief, and the young chap was mighty curious to know all about it; but the half-caste he were too slim. They jes’ paced roun’ each other like a couple o’ strange dogs. At the end the chief he up and say, ‘I know where you’re going.’ ‘Soh?’ said the half-caste. ‘Yes,’ said the chief, ‘you’re going to the white man’s camp to give the white chief news of our coming.’ Well, the half-caste he spat in the fire. ‘You are a boy,’ he said; ‘your place is at home with the women.’ ‘My place is with you,’ said the young chief, speaking soft, so that the other laughed in his throat, and called the chief quedin– ‘boy’ – again, which you know is the easiest word to rile a Kaffir. ‘I know, in your heart,’ said the boy, ‘you will sell us for the white man’s money.’ The half-caste spat again. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘the white men are in terror of you – a warrior like you would be worth a whole goat to them.’ ‘I am Sandili,’ said the lad, ‘son of the head chief, and one day the Amakosa will do my bidding.’ The half-caste giv’ a start; then he grew soft all of a sudden. ‘I was but trying you,’ he said. ‘Oh, chief, forget my words, and take the path with me in the morning. We will find out where the red-coats are, how many of them, and what road they take, so that we can report to your father, and plans can be made to trap them.’ I could hear the hiss of a snake in the man’s speech, sonny; and it struck me then he had, in his heart, determined to take the young chief Sandili to the English colonel.”

“It was really Sandili?”

“It were, an’ no mistake. I could a’ shot him then, an’ put a stop to two wars; but a good many things could be done, sonny, if only we could see ahead. Well, for all they’d made friends, those two didn’t trust one another – not a bit, not they – they jes’ sat there glancing acrost the coals, nodding, an’ wakin’ up with a start, and when one on ’em moved t’other would have his eyes wide open. Long before sun-up they moved off, an’ I crep’ outer my hidin’ place to the fire, where I found jes’ a coal-blackened strip o’ meat that jes’ made me hungrier than afore. Lor’ love you, a human is a helpless crittur. There was animiles about an’ birds, but as I darn’t use my gun I couldn’t get one. I cotched a salamander and ate him, an’ a land crab by the stream, an’ ate him – an’ I ate some berries, an’ a clutch o’ young birds from the nest, and I had a bathe – and took up the spoor of the two of ’em. ’Twas easier spoorin’ now, for they was going slow, and at mid-day I had ’em in sight, and so kep’ ’em till the last. In the afternoon we were climbing a ridge among the bushes, when boomin’ along there came the sound of music that brought the three of us to a dead stop. Never had young Abe yeard any sound like that afore or since ’cept once – it went through my worn-out body until I trembled like a leaf – yes, sonny – and the wet ran down my cheeks. ’Twas the soun’ of a big drum.”

“There’s not much music in that, Abe.”

“Isn’t there, sonny? Not when you’ve been three days in the woods, skeered of every shadder; not when you’ve yeard the war-cry of the red Kaffir; not when the cries of the little ones waitin’ for the assegai are ringin’ in yer head. Only the soun’ of a drum. One, big boomin’ note, rolling clear an’ far with a message of help. The tiredness an’ the sickness fell from me, sonny, an’ I could a’ run up that hill. The other two they crept up presently, and bymby I follered and hid behind ’em. They was crouchin’ by a rock, lookin’ down, and I forgot ’em in lookin’ at the picture. Far below in the valley was the white tents, an’ the cattle, an’ a line of red where the soldiers were drawn up, bayonets flashing. Then a troop of men on horseback rode down the line, and again the drums beat and the bugles rang out. It was a picture, sonny, that I could a’ looked at all day, but I were jes’ jerked out o’ my spell o’ dreamin’ by the chief talkin’.”

“‘Yoh,’ he said, ‘they are few, but what noise is that?’

“‘Tis their witch-music,’ said the half-caste; ‘’tis kep’ in a big box, and when the man hits the top of it with a stick the witch cries out what they should do.’ ‘Yoh!’ said the chief, ‘I will kill the box! They are great warriors, these, but they are foolish to wear a red so bright, that no man of them can hide.’ ‘They do not hide,’ said the half-caste, and he shifted his gun as he looked at the chief from the corner of his eyes. ‘Let us go.’ ‘Nay,’ said the chief, ‘it is a good sight this – stay a little while. Why do they move about so?’ ‘It’s their war-dance, and he on the white horse is the chief. At his words they turn and stop, break up, and come together.’ The young chief watched like a dog straining at the leash – and, by gum, he yeard the colonel’s commands, though never a sound reached me. A smart Kaffir can smell, and see, and hear like a animile. ‘Yoh!’ he said; ‘listen to his words!’ – and in his excitement he raised his head, and the half-caste he stood back and lifted his gun. But he measured his distance to the camp, and he said, ‘Let us get nearer’ – for why, the cuss wanted to be near help when he went for the chief. The chief looked round, and, ghoisters! he seed my face stickin’ outer a bush. He jumped to his feet and drew back his arm to fly the assegai, but the half-caste, after one glance at me, dropped his gun, seized the haft of the assegai with one hand and hooked his other arm round the chief’s neck. ‘It was a good word you spoke, quedin,’ he said, hissing as he struggled with the boy. ‘I will sell you to the white man.’ Seein’ how it was, I stepped out, and as I went up I seed the chief’s eyes rollin’, while his nostrils were blowed out like a horse. ‘I am a boy,’ he said; ‘I give in.’ The half-caste he laughed, turnin’ to me whiles he called out in Dutch that it was he who took the quedin prisoner, but he’d give me somethin’ if I helped him – the skunk, the blanged, mangy, yeller dog. Well, sonny, that Kaffir were shamming. Soon’s he give in, the half-caste he loosed his hold, when, with a grunt, the Kaffir yanked his assegai away, and with a wriggle o’ his naked body he got a length and struck the half-caste under the armpit. ‘Dog,’ he said, and druv’ his assegai in over the blade. The half-caste he jes’ went green. ‘Ek ’es dood,’ he said, lookin’ at me; then he sat down all of a heap. The young chief he stood there eyein’ me like a tiger, with his lips curled back and his chest heavin’. It was the first man he’d killed, I guess. Well, I lifted the gun, but the left hand gave out and the barrel wobbled – then, I dunno why, but I begin to laugh in a foolish way, an’ I kep’ on laughin’ whiles the Kaffir came crouchin’ up with his assegai held back. Nex’ thing I seed the half-caste roll over, and then sit up and point his gun at the boy’s back. ‘Pass op,’ I said ’mid the laughin’, while the sweat was drippin’ off my nose; and the chief he jumped aside as tho’ there was a snake in his way, and the bullet whizzed by him. The half-caste gave a groan and rolled over dead, out of hate and disappointment, ’cause he’d missed. That’s so. The chief he looked at me, an’ he looked at the soldiers who were hurrying up from down below, then he jes’ turned and walked away; yes, he jes’ walked away with his head up, and I could a’ shot him – for the laughin’ fit had passed away. But before he could ha’ killed me easy as sticking a pig, so I watched him go; an’ when he reached the bush he said, lookin’ over his shoulder, ‘Grow fat, man who laughs, an’ you will be food for my assegai.’ The cheek of these young bucks; but I reckon, sonny, if he’d a’ known I’d killed two of his men in the Chumie he wouldn’t a’ waited, for all I was like a shadder.”

“Is that all?” I said, when the old man paused.

“Well, it were enuff, wern’t it?”

“What did the Colonel say?”

“Oh, the Colonel! He said, ‘Who the devil are you, an’ where the blazes you come from?’ That’s what he said, that time; but ’twern’t long afore he changed the tune of his remarks. ‘Who the devil are you, and where the blazes you come from?’ he sed, sittin’ in his tent with his officers by him; an’ I jes’ reached over to a black square bottle that was ahind him and put the neck to my mouth.”

Chapter Twenty Two

The Red Diamond

Our big Christmas hunt was in full swing. In a smooth, well-carpeted glade, surrounded by forest trees and bush, the three tent wagons of the party were outspanned, drawn up in a hollow square which formed a capacious outside room, roofed in by a wide stretch of canvas. From the spreading branches of a yellow-wood hung the last day’s ‘bag,’ consisting of seven bushbucks, two duikers, three blaauwboks, one jackal, and a wild dog. Beyond the wagons was the servants’ fire, and the ‘boys’ themselves were ‘brying’ meat and talking, as only Kaffirs can talk when the day’s work is over and food is plentiful. In our ‘scherm’ one lantern swung from the centre pole, its light just sufficient to mark out the position of the brown demijohn on the box that served as a table; while across the breadth of darkness, where the ‘scherm’ opened to the wood, fireflies crossed and circled. The quiet of the night was over the bush, intensified by the deep undertone from the sea, and the brooding spirit in time reduced us to silence, even stilling Long Jim’s concertina, whose lugubrious notes had in the early hours of the evening wailed complainingly over “The Old Camp Ground,” “Poor Old Joe,” and other old favourites.

“I envy you fellows,” said Mr Strong, a crack shot from the town; “we don’t get such nights as this.”

“The boot’s on the other foot,” said Long Jim, making his instrument moan. “We’ve got poverty and pumpkins. You’ve got comfort and a pianny.” And he pumped out “Hard times come again no more” till a dog pointed its nose to the sky and howled in sympathy.

“There’s no chance of making a pile in the country,” said Amos Topper, who raised ten acres of “forage” regularly every season, and “rode” firewood for a living in the balance of the year. “’Tis all hard work and disappointment – ticks in the cattle and rust in the corn.”

“Soh!” said Abe Pike.

“Well; so it is!”

“Yet,” said Abe, “there’s chances.”

“Meanin’ pine-apples and bananas, which Dick Purdy made a fortune out of through growing them on the slope of a valley.”

“No; meanin’ diamonds.”

“There’s no diamonds down here.”

“Is that so? Well, I seed one right here, as big as a plum an’ as red as the eye of a coal gleamin’ outer the dark. Yes, sir.”

“Of course. It belonged to some digger from the field. For the matter of that, I’ve seen a whole bucketful of them, but then they was white, and the sight of ’em never made me any the richer.”

“Your head was allus too big for your hat, Amos. I expect that’s why there’s a hole in the crown of it for your hair to grow through – but it so happens this yer diamon’ I’m speakin’ of could ha’ been gathered by anyone who had the pluck to grab it.”

“Fire ahead, old man,” I said, seeing that Abe was preparing the way for a yarn.

“You’ve hit it, sonny,” said Abe solemnly; “it was fire-ahead, and no mistake. Lemme see; you know ole Harkins, the mad trader?”

“I remember him,” said Mr Strong, “a fine hunter in his youth, who returned from his last trip into the interior broken by the Zambesi fever. He had a suspicion that everyone was watching him, and I believe he died in the bush after leading the life of a hermit.”

“That’s him,” said Abe, pulling at his pipe until the glow lit up his lined face. “Yes, he went into the bush – and for three years he hunted for that same red diamond. Some people thought he was crazy – so he were crazy after a fortune, but lor’ bless yer, he’d got all his wits about him, and the fortune was big enough to buy up the whole side of this district – houses, land and stock – which is a big enough haul to turn the minds of most of us. One night, many years ago, I was still-huntin’ buffel by the Kowie bush, when from the thick of the wood I yeard a noise that sent me up a tree in a jif – a shrill sort o’ scream that I couldn’t fix – an’ whiles I was up the tree I seed ole Harkins slippin’ along through the moon light. He stood under the tree listenin’, and then he began talkin’ to hisself in jerks. ‘That’s him, I swear!’ he said, ‘and by God I’ll have him or die!’

“I jes’ kep’ quiet, for I tell you I didn’t like the look o’ him, with his long hair, and his lean fingers, and burnin’ eyes, but when he slipped along inter the wood like a shadder – for there the no boots on his feet – I skimmed down and let out after him with my heart in my mouth. I guess I hadn’t got much sense, and when I’d gone no more’n fifty paces inter the dark of the trees he grabbed me by the throat – afore I knew where he were. Oh, lor’! He jes’ grabbed me by the throat and shook me. ‘You’re follerin’ me!’ he hissed.

“Of course, I couldn’t speak, but I kicked and spluttered, and he loosened his hold. ‘You’re follerin’ me!’ he said, stickin’ his face close up. ‘I ain’t,’ I said; ‘I’m after buffel.’ ‘You yeard it,’ he hissed; ‘and you meant to rob me.’ Well, I laughed. The idea of robbing a scarecrow like him was too much, and I couldn’t help laughing, not though he looked as savage as a starved tiger. All the property he carried were a big-bore elephant gun, and I noticed the trigger were cocked. ‘Clear out,’ he said; ‘and if I see you after me I’ll kill you.’ By gum, he meant it, and I cleared out smart with him after me over the ridge, when once ag’in there came that strange cry from the woods, so near this time that I jumped inter a bush. Well, there were a smashin’ o’ trees, and afore I knew what was up a bit of the country rose up and came rolling down through the moonlight. Man alive – it were a thunderation bull elephant, and I slipped outer the bush and bolted for hum with Harkins’s yell a-ringing in my ears. Well, sir, whiles I was sittin’ in the room gettin’ back my wind, up along, in a flurry, came Sam Dale. ‘It’s true,’ said he, with a gasp, as he flung open the door. ‘What’s true?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I seed it. I were crossing the drift in Euphorby Valley when I yeard a splash in the pool, and out of the dark end beneath the krantz I seed a glow of red. First I thought it were a eye, but then I noted how it sparkled, and all in a breath it struck me it were ole Harkins’s diamond. Then there was a splash in the water, and I ran on here to ask you to help me kill the crittur.’ ‘Hol’ on,’ I said; ‘what the blazes are you talking about? I never yeard of any diamond, and I’m not killing any crittur to-night,’ I said. Well, Sam Dale he up and tole me how Harkins had courted his sister years before, and how his sister had told him, unbeknown to Harkins, how she had seen the big red diamond he kep’ in his pocket, which he had bought from a Kaffir chief. And Sam, he told me a most surprisin’ story, how Harkins being one night cornered by a animile in the wood had loaded his big rifle with that same diamond instead of a bullet – and how he had fired it into that animile – and how he went crazy in consequence. That’s what Sam tole me that very night arter I had met Harkins hisself, and it wern’t more’n a minute afore I seed that if there was any truth in that yarn the red diamon’ was in that bull elephant. Sam and me we talked and talked, until in the early morning we fixed up a company.”

“What did you do?”

“We made a company – that’s what – the Dale-Pike Diamon’ Mining Company, but lor’ bless yer, in the morning the whole thing seemed so blamed ridiklus that we guv up the idea. All the same, Sam he went down to Euphorby Drift, and I smoused over to the old spot where I seed the elephant, and blow me – there was ole Harkins flattened out Yes, sir. He were.”

“What ailed him?”

“He were dead – that’s all. That bull elephant must have charged him down soon’s I cleared off. We reckoned, Sam and me, that as Harkins were dead that diamon’ mine b’longed to us, and we started that company over again. It was quite reg’lar. Sam he studied up a prospectus, and fixed up a capital, he subscribin’ two trek oxen, an’ me a cow, a bull calf, and a pair o’ gobblers. The hull lot came to 16 pounds, and with that we laid in a stock o’ powder, lead, blankets, boots, coffee, sugar, tabak, an’ a demijohn o’ Cango. Then we shut up our homes, both on us being bachelors, and started after that ere blasted bull elephant.”

“I thought you were after a diamond?”

“You ain’t got any more thinking machine than a biled rabbit, Sam Topper. That bull elephant were the diamon’ mine, in course.”

“How was that?”

“Ain’t I tole you? Why, when Harkins made that mistake and fired off that diamon’ it went plump into the ole bull. I seed that as soon’s Sam Dale told me the yarn, and we started after that property of ourn. That was forty-five year ago, and I guess from the size of his right tusk, the left been broken off, he were then about one hundred years old. I tell you what, chaps, that diamon’s still knocking aroun’ in the Addo bush.”

“The company didn’t come into possession, then?” said Mr Strong.

“Well, do I look as if I had a fortune of one hundred and fifty thousand golding sovereigns, which we reckoned was the value of that stone? Not much! No, sir.”

“Well, did you ever see the diamond?”

“I’ll tell you. Sam and me we struck the spoor at Euphorby, follered it fifteen miles in an’ out of the Kowie bush, away over to the Kasouga, and ten miles to the Kareiga – in an’ out of the thickest bush – sleepin’ out o’ nights. Back ag’in to the Kowie bush, over into the Fish River, without settin’ eyes once on the blanged thing. One month we were on the spoor, and the food run out, so’s we’d got to raise more capital, which we riz by selling Sam’s plough and my harrow – the two of ’em bringing in twenty-five shillings. Then we ran ag’inst the mine after Sam had taken a horn o’ Cango – and his ribs were broken in. Yes, the fust thing we knowed one night thet bull charged us out of a patch of bush in the open. Well, I took Sam to a farmhouse, and picked up the spoor, and two nights after came on the bull standin’ in a vley on the flats over yonder. My! He were jes’ standing there shooting the water over his mountain-high body, with his big ears flapping, when he turned his head, and I seed that diamon’ shinin’ in his forehead like a blood-red star. I tell you that mine lit out a yell and came arter me like a rock hurled from the hilltop. The land was as flat as the palm of your hand, and the only thing was ter double. Well, I did that, and slipped into the vley, and the ole bull, arter ramping around, stood there on the brink listenin’, while his trunk went twistin’ about to catch my wind. He kep’ me there till the cold got into my bones, and then, when the dawn was breaking, off he made for the Kareiga again. Arter that Sam and me we called in fresh capital, an’ Jerry Wittal joined us with a piebald mare and twenty-five sheep. Part o’ the money was paid to mend Sam’s ribs, and then we went arter the ole bull ag’in. This time he went west, through the Addo and on to the Knysna. Six months we kep’ on arter him, sometimes he came arter us; and at last he smashed up the company one morning by takin’ us as we slep’. Yes, sir. That crittur, he waited till the cold of the mornin’, when we couldn’t see for the sleep, and he pounded Jerry into the groun’. He did that, and ef he hadn’t a screamed in his joy he might a done for us; but Sam and me, we dodged roun’ a tree an’ blazed inter him. Sam right there said the company must go inter liquidation, an’ he worked his way back home as a handy-man from farm to farm. Poor Sam! His nerves went, and in less than a year he was dead, sure enuf. Of course all this huntin’ got about, and a chap from Port Elizabeth said he would help me refloat the company; but when I giv’ him all the facts blow me if he didn’t try to ‘jump’ the claim.”

“How was that?”

“Why, he went off on the hunt with a couple o’ niggers, and afore I knowed about it he’d been out three days in the bush. It makes me laugh now. Wha’ yer think? I came across him without his gun, or his hat, or his kit, making tracks for home. He found the bull sure enough, but the bull chased him up a yellow-wood tree and kep’ him there one day and a night.”

“Did he see the diamond?”

“Oh, yes; he seed too much of it; but he didn’t want any more of that sort o’ minin’ – and ’tweren’t long afore I chucked the job, too.”

“How was that?”

“Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I tole you. At any rate it’s bedtime; and if you young ones don’t roost now you’ll never hold your guns straight in the mornin’. So long!”

Chapter Twenty Three

Abe’s Diamond Mine

We were still at the camp near the bush by the sea, and the week’s hunt was ended. The “boys” had gone off to a neighbouring kraal to dance and eat and drink throughout the night, and we were left in the great quiet of a South African evening. As usual, Long Jim had squeezed from his concertina all the melancholy airs he knew, and Amos Topper had trotted out all his well-worn arguments against the Ukolobola– the Kaffir system of selling girls into wedlock in exchange for cattle; a system which he warmly contended was the root of all the stock-thieving.

“A darned good system,” said Abe; “one that’s based on reason and justice; that’s so.”

“Hear the old boomer!” said Amos scornfully; “anyone would think he’d got a parcel o’ daughters to marry off fer cattle.”

“Go slow, Amos Topper, and maybe you won’t stumble. A good system, says I; and why? ’cos it’s lasted all these centuries – since and before Jacob he collected a heap o’ goats for his wife. See yer, when a white man marries a girl he don’t give nothin’ for her, but he asks her father how much he’s going to give the girl. That’s what a white man does, and lor’ lov’ yer, more often than not he swallows up all her money, and then beats her, the skunk. Now a black man is different. When he goes courtin’ he don’t ask the father how much the girl’s goin’ to bring to the hut – not he. What he does is to ask the father how much he wants for the girl. ‘Five cows,’ says the father ‘for the girl is nice an’ fat.’ Well, the young buck he’s got to get them five cows, and if he takes one outer a white man’s kraal that’s due to his impatience – it don’t prove the system is wrong. Well, the five cows is paid over, an’ the girl goes to the young buck. As usual, the pair has children – and the cows has calves. Maybe the husband beats his wife. What then; why, sir, the wife takes her children and goes back to her father. ‘I’ve come back,’ she says, ‘and I’m going to live on them cows and calves.’ The father he can’t say nothin’; ’cos why, ’cos he took those same cows in trust for his daughter ’gainst she should come, back to him on account of her husband’s bad treatment. That’s so. The Ukolobola is better’n a magistrate for keeping the peace ’twixt husband and wife. That’s why I say ’tis a good system, an’ a just system.”

“’Tis well known,” said Amos, “that Abe Pike’s got no cause to kick against Kaffir customs, because he keeps no cattle worth havin’ – nor nothin’ else, for that matter.”

“By the way, Uncle Abe,” I said quickly, to prevent the coming storm; “you promised to tell us how it was you gave over searching for that diamond mine.”

“Meaning that bull elephant,” said Amos Topper, still aggressively; “and I do say this, of all the yarns I heard there’s none to beat that for downright contrariness to what is reasonable. Who ever heard of a bull elephant rampaging round with a red diamond stuck in his forehead?”

“Humph!” grunted Abe. “If we was to believe nothin’ you never yeard on we’d be a pack o’ blamed jackasses, and no mistake. Now, I tell you that same elephant is a-tramping around now over yonder in the Addo bush, with that same red diamond a-gleamin’ in his forehead, if so be the hide ain’t growed over it.”

“Why don’t you get a permit from Government and shoot him, then!”

“Not me: not Abe Pike. Oh, no! I tole you how he flattened out ole Harkins, an’ stove in my partner’s ribs, an’ laid out another chap what j’ined the company with a yeller horse, an’ skeered off that Port Elizabeth fellow what tried to ‘jump’ my claim. Well, that showed this yer walkin’ diamond mine were dangerous, but, lor’ bless yer, the schreik he gave me was somethin’ that sent the everlastin’ shivers up an’ down my backbone. I’ll tell you how ’twas. When the company was busted up I was the only chap what held shares, an’ as there was no market for ’em I calkerlated to do the prospectin’ myself. So I went on a reg’lar expedition into the bush with a new castin’ o’ bullets, a horn o’ powder, a tin box o’ caps – them being muzzle-loading days – an’ a kit o’ one sheepskin kaross, with a roll o’ tobacco, five pounds o’ coffee, an’ sugar, an’ as much Boer meal as I could buy, with a pot an’ cometje. I reckoned to shoot my own meat an’ pick up berries, besides gettin’ a square meal at a farmhouse now an’ ag’in. So I sot out into the Addo, an’ gettin’ to the middle of it, planted my kit in a holler tree. That was a Sunday. Then I scouted aroun’. Monday I seed nothin’. Tuesday I came on a family party o’ two tigers an’ their cubs. The ole woman, steppin’ on her toes, marched me off the premises, an’ I darsn’t shoot for fear o’ skeerin’ the elephant. I had to march back’ards, an’ the thorns they jest had a picnic with my shirt, I tell you; an’ I got sich a cramp in my stummick that I couldn’t hunt any more that day. Wednesday I came on elephant spoor – fresh spoor – and follered it for four hours without ever seein’ a patch o’ the animile. Thursday I came on spoor ag’in within twenty yards o’ where I camped. Yes, sirree; that crittur had come up as near as that, and he’d stood there for a long time, maybe watchin’ me. Well, I lit out on the tracks and follered ’em in an’ out an’ roun’ about all through the mornin’ into the afternoon, the tracks keeping so fresh that I kep’ on with the trigger at full cock. In the evenin’ the spoor led me right back to my holler tree, and blow me if that crittur hadn’t been overhauling my goods. Yes, that’s so. The kettle it were hung twenty feet from the ground. The kaross it were peppered all over with holes, where he’d drove his tusk through. The Boer meal were all eaten up, except for a sprinkle here and there; and the tobacco were chewed up and spat out. I dried it and smoked it, and it had a flavour of boots most terrible. Well, I tell you, this made me quei, but when I seed, arter looking more carefully, that this yer fool elephant were my diamon’ mine itself I jes’ picked up. ’Cos, what’s the loss of a few shillin’s worth of things when that diamon’ ’ud bring in enough to buy up a whole street full o’ grocers’ shops.”