Still the journal, though it evoked the displeasure of its quondam admirers, doubtless acted for the best in a difficult situation; and there were many who might have overlooked the “parallels” were it not for the advertisements.  For through the advertising columns we were perpetually being pressed by the merchants of the city to come in and buy everything that makes life worth living!  All the dainties an aspirant to gout could wish for were, according to our “Official Gazette,” to be had for the asking.  At the hotels, “Highland Cream Whiskey” was for ever arriving; and “O.K.” (another thistle!) kept “licking ’em all” with monotonous invincibility.  Iced beer was on tap; the champagne was sparkling; the wine needed no bush.  The cheese was still alive (on paper).  Cakes, hams, jams, biscuits, potted fish, flesh, and good red herring were, so to speak, all over the shops.  This was the sort of pabulum our morning sheet supplied by way of breakfast for inward digestion, and there was an irony in the meal which its uniqueness did not help to make palatable.  Absent-minded people still went shopping for luxuries gone but not forgotten; to provoke a premature “April fool” from the startled grocer, who was powerless to make real the chimeras that haunted the jungles of the shoppers’ imaginations.  Even practical (new) women would sometimes think of Bovril, and rush off to buy it all up, only to find that it had been bought up long ago, and that not for nothing had so much money been expended in the booming of that bullock in a bottle!  Our boarding-house tariffs were ridiculously low (the paper said) at seven or eight pounds per month; while the allurements of the boating and the creature comforts of Modder River, and the balminess of its breezes, were dangled before our eyes with aggressive cynicism.  The shipping agents were most attentive to detail in regard to the departure of vessels from Cape ports—­just as if the availability of aerial tugs, to convey us to the coast, went without saying.  Such were the irritating features of our morning paper.  Their humour was utterly lost on us; they only served to sharpen the unhappy appetites of all whose fatal misfortune was ability to read.

Nasty stories had been told with reference to the reign of terror to be inaugurated on Monday.  But they did not materialise; the rule of Martial Law—­bad to beat—­remained unbeatable.  The expected rarely happened, and peace was oftener than not the characteristic of the prophets’ red-letter-day.  Such occasions gave us scope and opportunity to discuss the Kabal that ran her Majesty’s writ, and to wonder whether it (the writ) should ever again be pacemaker to the people’s will.  The spectacle of a number of Union Jacks floating on the breeze was the most startling incident of the day.  What did the transformation mean?  A wild conjecture seized us; it was a moment of unalloyed joy when the fond thought of Kimberley’s relief having been accomplished during the night flashed across our minds.  But our jubilation was short-lived, for the Boers presently fired a salute with intent clearly to tatter rather than honour the Flag—­in defence of which Long Cecil, tattered itself, was unable to play a part.