Jock of the Bushveld

“Sonny, you kin reckon it dead sure, thar’s something wrong ’bout a thing that don’t explain itself.” That was Old Rocky’s advice, given three-and-twenty years ago—not forgotten yet, but, in this instance, respectfully ignored. It happened some years ago, and this was the way of it: the Fox of Ballybotherem having served three generations—in his native Tipperary, in Kaffraria, and in the Transvaal—seemed entitled to a rest; and when, in the half-hour before ‘lights out,’ which is the Little People’s particular own, the demand came from certain Autocrats of the Nightgown: “Now, tell us something else!” it occurred to the Puzzled One to tell of Jock’s fight with the table leg. And that is how the trouble began.