Our Little Mantatee 'Kleenboy' Has Again, Like Jeshurun, 'waxed Fat
And Kicked', As Soon As He Had Eaten Enough To Be Once More Plump
And Shiny.
After his hungry period, he took to squatting on the
stoep, just in front of the hall-door, and altogether declining to
do anything; so he is superseded by an equally ugly little red-
headed Englishman.
The Irish housemaid has married the German
baker (a fine match for her!), and a dour little Scotch
Presbyterian has come up from Capetown in her place. Such are the
vicissitudes of colonial house-keeping! The only 'permanency' is
the old soldier of Captain D-'s regiment, who is barman in the
canteen, and not likely to leave 'his honour', and the coloured
girl, who improves on acquaintance. She wants to ingratiate
herself with me, and get taken to England. Her father is an
Englishman, and of course the brown mother and her large family
always live in the fear of his 'going home' and ignoring their
existence; a MARRIAGE with the mother of his children would be too
much degradation for him to submit to. Few of the coloured people
are ever married, but they don't separate oftener than REALLY
married folks. Bill, the handsome West Indian black, married my
pretty washerwoman Rosalind, and was thought rather assuming
because he was asked in church and lawfully married; and she wore a
handsome lilac silk gown and a white wreath and veil, and very well
she looked in them.
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