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that epic struggle, American though he might be.
    "The generals didn't trickle down to my level much," he observed. "But yes, I was there—at Ladysmith, for one."
    It seemed an odd thing to me that this ingenuous youth should have been engaged in a battle which had made history for the Empire, and I said, "Even though a foreigner, you must have been thrilled at our vic tory."
    He gave me a squinting look.
    "Well, Kruger's army's out of it now," said he, "but the war's not over. And the way it's going on is one reason I left. 'Mopping up' is what the dispatches call it, but it's fighting against the farmers on their farms, getting backshot from behind a koppie , burning people out of their homes, and herding old men, women, and children behind barbed wire so's you can keep an eye on 'em all in one place . . . What do the staff fellows call 'em, now— Oh, yes, 'concentration camps.' It's a pretty-sounding name, but it don't look so pretty when you see it."
    I was not well-pleased to hear this sort of pro-Boer sentiment from one who, though he had admittedly been on the scene, did not have the instinctive view point from which to understand these matters. Holmes divined my irritation, and attempted to compose mat ters by saying: "Mr. Mix comes from a land which established itself little more than a century ago by just such a struggle. Whatever the deeper significance of the con flict, an American is bound to have a feeling for embattled farmers."
    He turned to Mix and said, "I am always glad to meet an American, and, in spite of the business which brings me on this trip, happy to renew my acquaint ance with your country. Your rebellion against the Crown was a sad loss to us, but I believe we have been the gainer by seeing the old English spirit of Liberty reborn in even stronger form. It would be a grand thing, would it not, if one day our two nations, in a time of greater understanding, might rejoin and truly form what your Constitution calls 'a more perfect union.'"
    As always, when mounting one of his few ab stractly philosophical hobby-horses, Holmes was close to being feverishly animated.
    " We have the age and experience of Empire," he went on—almost declaiming—" you , the generosity and vigor of youth. Should Britain and America have been united two years ago, for instance, I doubt that this unhappiness in South Africa would ever have taken place—for who can imagine America exerting its might to force its will on a distant, poor nation of peasants, whatever the cause?"
    Mix bent on him the same quizzical look he had at first given me. "When you get to the States," said he quietly, "you might look up old Geronimo. He and you could have a right interesting talk on that point. See you at the concert tonight, gentlemen."
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    I had to admit, as I sat in the lounge that night, that Mix's songs, delivered in a pleasant, slightly nasal baritone, were simple and affecting, dealing with star-crossed lovers, the work of cattle ranching, and duels on fine points of honor, set to tunes that mostly seemed English or Irish. My neighbor, a red-faced man in a rumpled dinner jacket, seemed much moved, and tears rolled down his cheeks.
    Because of a change in the original order, Holmes was next to appear; and, though I had become inured to his abstracted scraping on his instrument during those times when he was brooding on some case—or the lack of any case—I responded to the richer tones and more assured performance that he now gave with enthusiasm. He eschewed the severely classical, and played several warmly haunting tunes reminiscent of Austria (lilting waltzes and pyrotechnic Gypsy mel odies), though finishing, for reasons which escaped me, with "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes."
    As the last strains of Holmes' violin died away, the man next to me muttered, "Beau'f'l song. Swee'st song ever . . ."
    I looked at him sharply. His eyes were glassy and through his