traditions of Oxford.  They were his inferiors in everything:  intelligence, instruction, comprehension of those higher problems of the soul and of the mind which always interested him even in the most troubled and anxious moments of his life.  He understood and realised that this was the fact, and this did not tend to inspire him with esteem or even with consideration for the people with whom he was compelled to live and work.

Men like Barney Barnato, to mention only this one name among the many, felt a kind of awe of Cecil Rhodes.  This kind of thing, going on as it did for years, was bound to give Rhodes a wrong idea as to the faculty he had of bringing others to share his points of view, and he became so accustomed to be considered always right that he felt surprised and vexed whenever blind obedience was not given.  Indeed, it so excited his displeasure that he would at once plunge into a course of conduct which he might never have adopted but for the fact that he had heard it condemned or criticised.

It has been said that every rich man is generally surrounded by parasites, and Cecil Rhodes was not spared this infliction.  Only in his case these parasites did not apply their strength to attacks upon his purse; they exploited him for his influence, for the importance which it gave them to be considered by the world as his friends, or even his dependants.  They appeared wherever he went, telling the general public that their presence had been requested by the “Boss” in such warm terms that they could not refuse.  It was curious to watch this systematic chase which followed him everywhere, even to England.  Sometimes this persistency on the part of persons whom he did not tolerate more than was absolutely necessary bored him and put him out of patience; but most of the time he accepted it as a necessary evil, and even felt flattered by it.  He also liked to have perpetually around him individuals whom he could bully to his heart’s content, who never resented an insult and never minded an insolence—­and Rhodes was often insolent.

Another singular feature in a character as complex as it was interesting was the contempt in which he held all those who had risen under his very eyes, from comparative or absolute poverty, to the status of millionaires possessed of houses in Park Lane and shooting boxes in Scotland.  He liked to relate all that he knew about them, and sometimes even to mention certain facts which the individuals themselves would probably have preferred to be consigned to oblivion.  But—­and here comes the singularity to which I have referred—­Rhodes would not allow anyone else to speak of these things, and he always took the part of his so-called friends when outsiders hinted at dark episodes which did not admit of investigation.  He almost gave a certificate of good conduct to people whom he might have been heard referring to a few hours before in a far more antagonistic spirit than that displayed by those whom he so sharply contradicted.