The Petticoat Commando Part 42

He asked her a few questions, with long pauses in between, and again bent over his papers, making pencil marks and turning the pages over slowly.

The silvery chime of a tiny clock told the hour of five.

"You--er--will have some tea?"

"No, thank you," surprised.

A moment's silence, then he pressed an electric bell at his right hand.

An immaculate "b.u.t.tons" instantly appeared.

"Tea for two," the officer commanded, without raising his head.

b.u.t.tons disappeared, to return in an incredibly short time, bearing aloft a well-appointed _tete-a-tete_.

When he had withdrawn, the hospitable officer, of whom it could well be said that "he had a teapot in his soul," poured out two cups of tea with an abstracted air, pushed one towards Hansie with his right hand, while he slowly stirred his own with his left.

"Have some tea," he said persuasively.

There was no answer, and he again bent over the work with which he was occupied.

Hansie got up quietly and left the room, but she had not gone many yards in the long corridor before she became aware of hurried footsteps following.

It was the tall officer, very straight now, who called out to her:

"Stop, stop a moment. Where are you going?"

Without turning round she replied:

"To General Maxwell. He _never_ keeps me waiting," and walked on rapidly.

"Don't go," he implored. "Come back to my office. I have your permits quite ready for you. I was busy with them all the time."

She turned round slowly and walked back with him to his office.

"Thank you _very_ much," she said as she took the papers from his hand.

He opened the door for her with exaggerated courtesy, and she went on her way, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with delight.

"I missed two teas this afternoon, but I got my permits and came off with flying colours," she confided to her dumb companion. "Let us go home and tell the mother all about it, Carlo mine."

CHAPTER x.x.xII

KIDNAPPING MAUSER THE KITTEN

One afternoon when Mrs. van Warmelo and Hansie were returning home, as they pa.s.sed the house occupied by one of the biggest "lords" in the British Army, they saw an exquisite black kitten sitting on the steps leading from the street to the garden.

Such a kitten! Coal black she was, except for a snowy s.h.i.+rt front and four dainty, snow-white paws.

A delicate ribbon of pale blue satin was fastened in a bow round her neck, and she blinked at the pa.s.sers-by in friendly consciousness of her superior beauty.

"Oh, you darling!" Hansie exclaimed. "I wish you belonged to me!"

"She does," Mrs. van Warmelo answered, and stooping, she picked up the unresisting kitten and placed it in her daughter's arms.

It was done in a moment and was meant for a joke, but Hansie took the matter seriously and walked on, rapturously caressing her small "trophy of the war."

"Hansie, put that cat down," Mrs. van Warmelo said, looking anxiously up and down the street.

"No indeed, mother; you gave her to me."

"You know very well I did not mean you to keep her. I decline to have anything more to do with the matter."

She walked rapidly on and Hansie followed in some uncertainty, but holding on to her new-found treasure as if her life depended upon it.

Soon she caught up with her indignant parent and said in a conciliatory tone of voice:

"Surely, mother, you don't suppose I would steal a cat from any one else! But Lord ---- is trying to take my country, why should I not take his cat?"

"Two wrongs never made one right," her mother answered, "but do as you please. You always do."

Hansie kept that kitten and, after Carlo, loved it better than any other pet, and even Mrs. van Warmelo relented as she watched the playful creature hiding in the shadows and springing out at every pa.s.ser-by.

"What are you going to call her?" she asked her daughter.

"Oh, I don't know. Perhaps I'll go and ask Lord ---- what _he_ called her."

She stopped, observing her mother's frown, and then went on:

"We must think of a name, a nice, appropriate war name."

A few moments later the kitten crept into a corner, with a small mouse held firmly between her jaws.

"Oh, mother, look, she has caught a mouse already. She is going to be a splendid mouser. And oh, now I have a name for her. We'll call her '_Mauser_,' mother dear!"

So be it. "Mauser" is her name, and hereafter she may be seen invariably in Hansie's company, a welcome addition to the small, harmonious family.

Perched on Hansie's shoulder as she sat reading under the verandah, or purring round her as she lay under the trees, with Carlo watching by her side, Mauser was ever to be found where her young mistress was; and when the latter went to town she and Carlo were invariably escorted to the gate by the faithful Mauser, who again welcomed them on their return.

This kidnapping episode had taken place a few months after the British entry into Pretoria.

A full year had gone by; and Mauser, the kitten, had developed into a beautiful full-grown cat and was the mother of five mischievous little ones, grey-striped and very wild, for whom she had made a home in a deep hollow in the trunk of one of the big weeping-willows, the very tree under which "Gentleman Jim" had built his small kitchen of corrugated iron.

It is a stormy night in November 1901, a month remembered by all for the violence and frequency of its storms.