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e of the night, and thinking it had escaped from Emerson's Zoo, reckoned it a Christian duty to restore the wanderer. So he took it to the street leading to the bank-yard, tied one of those detonating squibs to its tail, and headed it for the gate. Heavens! you never heard such an awful row in your life. Phiz! bang! went the cracker, and there was the mongrel scooting round and round the yard, dragging a shower of fiery sparks, and every now and then bang would go the cracker like pistol-shots. You can just imagine the result. Everything kicked up the most fearful clamour--the dogs, and the cats, and the peacock, and the _aasvogel_, and the monkeys, all yelling at once; and the more they yelled, the more the thing seemed to bang off. It didn't hurt the cur though, for it was a long way behind him. But the best of the joke is that the banging of the crackers started the notion that the town was being attacked, and Lambert and some other fellows--myself among them--came slinking up gingerly with rifles. The squib had long burnt out by the time we got there; but the sight that met our astonished gaze was magnificent. Emerson was standing on the top step, clad in a short nightshirt, emptying all the furniture into the backyard, and, oh, his language! Well, I can only give you some idea of it by saying that it was so thick, that the chairs and tables he was hurling out stuck in it. They could not even reach the ground." "It looks as if you had a finger in the pie yourself, Smith. You seem to know all the details," said Roden. But Emerson merely grinned sardonically. He did not think the recital worthy of comment. Besides, he had heard it so often. "I? Not I. It only came in at the end, as I tell you," protested Smith. At this juncture a note was handed to Roden. It was from Mr Van Stolz. "Here's a little more excitement for Doppersdorp to-night," he said when he had read it. This was its burden. "One hundred and thirty-three mounted men from Barabastadt, _en route_ for the front, are passing through. They will camp here to-night. Volunteers and band going out to meet them. Tell everybody." This was news indeed. In a trice the table was deserted. All who heard it were in first-rate spirits--those who belonged to the newly formed Volunteer Corps, because it would afford an opportunity for a lively game of soldiers; those who did not, because it meant more excitement; while Jones, perhaps, was
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