consciousness of relief so near, and yet so far.  The irritation, however, was not to be felt yet.  We looked confidently to an early release—­so confidently that the decadence of dinners did not distress us.  We considered it of relatively little consequence that provisions were becoming scarce; they would last another fortnight “in a pinch,” we thought.  As for luxuries, we talked of them, and promised shortly to make up for lost time.  The anticipated reunion between bread and butter was a sustaining thought.  The Column might be trusted to carry with it a sufficiency of firkins to achieve that glorious end; and we were meanwhile content to be fastidious in our choice of jams, and to be the bane of our grocer’s existence.

CHAPTER VIII

Week ending 9th December, 1899

For such comfort as preserved fruit could shed over the soul was still ours.  It was not classed as a “necessary,” and the retailers being free to charge freely for it could sell it at a price too “long” for the purses of the many.  Dry bread is an unpalatable thing, and the new “Law’s” loaf was superlative in that respect.  The grocer was beginning to discriminate, so far as he dared, between his friends (his customers) and the casual purchaser, whose affected cordiality did not deceive the shrewd old wretch.  Butter had ceased to be practical politics; fruit and vegetables were sorely missed.  When existence is rendered trying by the scorching rays of a Kimberley sun, fruit and vegetables are essential to the preservation of health; but there was none preserved in the summer of the siege.  Grapes grew in corrugated green-houses outside the doors of the houses, but there were no vineyards to speak of.  The quality of the fruit, too, was poor; and though it was yet far from being ripe, it was guarded with a vigilance that made robbing a garden a suicidal proceeding.  The indefatigable coolies—­our not too green green-grocers—­did contrive to get hold of a species of wild grape, no bigger nor sweeter than haws, and to sell them for two shillings a pound!  Two pence could in normal times procure the best product of the vine; but these of course were siege grapes, and siege prices were charged for them, as in the matter of siege eggs, siege drinks, siege potatoes, siege everything—­that the “Law” allowed.  Morning lemons were never so badly needed; oranges would hardly suit the purpose—­but they, too, were gone.  Apples were out of the question; water-melon parties had ceased to be.  The absence of the “Java” (guava) broke the Bantu heart.  “’Ave a banana” was (happily) not yet composed, and gooseberries—­Cape gooseberries do not grow on bushes.  Small green things which lured one to colic were offered by the cool coolies for twopence each—­a sum that would have been exorbitant for a gross had they not borne the hall-mark of siege peaches.