and he got
kicked out of the Savoy. There was an agitation to get him deported,
and questions were asked in Parliament, and the Under-Secretary for
Foreign Affairs said his department had the matter in hand. I was
beginning to think that Blenkiron was carrying his tomfoolery too far,
so I went to see Sir Walter, but he told me to keep my mind easy.
'Our friend's motto is "Thorough",' he said, 'and he knows very well
what he is about. We have officially requested him to leave, and he
sails from Newcastle on Monday. He will be shadowed wherever he goes,
and we hope to provoke more outbreaks. He is a very capable fellow.'
The last I saw of him was on the Saturday afternoon when I met him in
St james's Street and offered to shake hands. He told me that my
uniform was a pollution, and made a speech to a small crowd about it.
They hissed him and he had to get into a taxi. As he departed there
was just the suspicion of a wink in his left eye. On Monday I read that
he had gone off, and the papers observed that our shores were well quit
of him.
I sailed on December 3rd from Liverpool in a boat bound for the
Argentine that was due to put in at Lisbon. I had of course to get a
Foreign Office passport to leave England, but after that my connection
with the Government ceased. All the details of my journey were
carefully thought out. Lisbon would be a good jumping-off place, for
it was the rendezvous of scallywags from most parts of Africa. My kit
was an old Gladstone bag, and my clothes were the relics of my South
African wardrobe. I let my beard grow for some days before I sailed,
and, since it grows fast, I went on board with the kind of hairy chin
you will see on the young Boer. My name was now Brandt, Cornelis
Brandt--at least so my passport said, and passports never lie.
There were just two other passengers on that beastly boat, and they
never appeared till we were out of the Bay. I was pretty bad myself,
but managed to move about all the time, for the frowst in my cabin
would have sickened a hippo. The old tub took two days and a night to
waddle from Ushant to Finisterre. Then the weather changed and we came
out of snow-squalls into something very like summer. The hills of
Portugal were all blue and yellow like the Kalahari, and before we made
the Tagus I was beginning to forget I had ever left Rhodesia. There
was a Dutchman among the sailors with whom I used to patter the taal,
and but for 'Good mor
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