He squatted down in front of me, staring in a vacant way at the fierce ball of the westering sun without blinking an eyelid, just as a vulture does.

“You look to me as though you had been fighting, Hans,” I said.  “The crown of your hat is knocked out; you are splashed with mud and there is the mark of a stick upon your left side.”

“Yes, Baas.  You are right as usual, Baas.  I had a quarrel with a man about sixpence that he owed me, and knocked him over with my head, forgetting to take my hat off first.  Therefore it is spoiled, for which I am sorry, as it was quite a new hat, not two years old.  The Baas gave it me.  He bought it in a store at Utrecht when we were coming back from Pongoland.”

“Why do you lie to me?” I asked “You have been fighting a white man and for more than sixpence.  You knocked him into a sluit and the mud splashed up over you.”

“Yes, Baas, that is so.  Your spirit speaks truly to you of the matter.  Yet it wanders a little from the path, since I fought the white man for less than sixpence.  I fought him for love, which is nothing at all.”

“Then you are even a bigger fool than I took you for, Hans.  What do you want now?”

“I want to borrow a pound, Baas.  The white man will take me before the magistrate, and I shall be fined a pound, or fourteen days in the trunk (i.e. jail).  It is true that the white man struck me first, but the magistrate will not believe the word of a poor old Hottentot against his, and I have no witness.  He will say, ’Hans, you were drunk again.  Hans, you are a liar and deserve to be flogged, which you will be next time.  Pay a pound and ten shillings more, which is the price of good white justice, or go to the trunk for fourteen days and make baskets there for the great Queen to use.’  Baas, I have the price of the justice which is ten shillings, but I want to borrow the pound for the fine.”

“Hans, I think that just now you are better able to lend me a pound than I am to lend one to you.  My bag is empty, Hans.”

“Is it so, Baas?  Well, it does not matter.  If necessary I can make baskets for the great white Queen to put her food in, for fourteen days, or mats on which she will wipe her feet.  The trunk is not such a bad place, Baas.  It gives time to think of the white man’s justice and to thank the Great One in the Sky, because the little sins one did not do have been found out and punished, while the big sins one did do, such as—­well, never mind, Baas—­have not been found out at all.  Your reverend father, the Predikant, always taught me to have a thankful heart, Baas, and when I remember that I have only been in the trunk for three months altogether who, if all were known, ought to have been there for years, I remember his words, Baas.”

“Why should you go to the trunk at all, Hans, when you are rich and can pay a fine, even if it were a hundred pounds?”