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It was probably B.-P. himself who said to the good lady of her helmet, "That is not the rule, Britannia." In three days Baden-Powell was in Mafeking, the guest of Mr. Julius Weil, who gave an anxious England as much important news of the gallant little Mafeking garrison during the Boer war as the universal Reuter himself.
After his tub, his quinine and tea, Baden-Powell sends for King Matikoli and demands to know why his three hundred Krobo are not on parade. His Majesty smiles and explains to the white chief that he is suffering from rheumatism in the shoulder, and therefore he, and consequently his tribe, cannot march that day.
The soldiers had set out on that dreadful march through swamp, and bush, and forest, to fight and bring to the dust a cruel bloodthirsty nation of savages, contemptuously described by Baden-Powell as "the bully tribe" of the Gold Coast Hinterland.
But it is ever his fun first. One word more. Against such a work as this it is sometimes urged that there is a certain indelicacy in revealing the virtues of a living man to whomsoever has a shilling in his pocket to purchase a book. My answer to such a charge may be given in a few lines. In writing about Baden-Powell your humble servant has hardly considered the feelings of Baden-Powell at all.
'The trouble will be, I told myself, 'to find the hotel again. But I had no trouble at all. My brain picked up bearing after bearing. I worked back up the street like a prize Baden-Powell scout, found the portico, remembered the stairway to the left, leading to the lounge, went up it, and recognising the familiar furniture, dropped into an armchair with a happy sigh.
He found, however, that it was an awkward place to defend and soon quitted it, as Baden-Powell seemed to be in no immediate need, and was in fact averse to Plumer's small force throwing itself upon the besiegers.
"My hat," says B.-P., "was violently struck from my head as if with a stick." This reminds me of the service rendered by Baden-Powell as a doctor. "Three times in this campaign have I taken out to the field with me a few bandages and dressings in my holster, and on each occasion I have found full use for them."
Grenfel and he let you in our troop right away!" "Didn't you even know we had Boy Scouts in America?" asked Harry. "My word as you English would say. That is the limit! Why, it's spread all over the country with us. But of course we all know that it started here that Baden-Powell thought of the idea!" "Rather!" said Dick, enthusiastically. "Good old Bathing-Towel!
On his solitary wanderings over the earth Baden-Powell has had many narrow escapes of death, but none so near, perhaps, as that of an excited native who, after an action, told B.-P. with bubbling enthusiasm that a bullet had passed between his ear and his head!
His whole attention becomes riveted on the game he is pursuing; he studies the spoor, takes account of the nature of the country, and makes a note in his mind of any observations likely to be of service during a campaign in that kind of country. It is not the work of destruction itself that makes Baden-Powell a keen sportsman.