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Updated: June 29, 2025
"That's what it means by never spiking him," Collins shot at the man with the waxed moustaches, as he stepped forward to the imaginary line in the sawdust, above the imaginary pit of the orchestra, and addressed the imaginary house. "Ladies and gentlemen, Barney Barnato is a josher.
He felt lonely. He said to himself grimly in one breath that pleasure was all rot, and in the next he sullenly demanded of the universe how it was that pleasure could not go on for ever, and why he was not Mr. Barney Barnato. Two old men entered the retreat and burnt cigarettes with many precautions. Then Mr. Lewis Mardon appeared and sat down boldly next to Matthew, like a privileged friend.
I asked him how he had broken away from it all. At that he laughed, a bitter, hard sort of laugh. 'By having the guts to break away from it, boy, he said. 'It was I who made Victor Marbran come away with me. We worked our passages out to the Cape and made our way up-country to Matabeleland. That was in the early days of Rhodes and Barney Barnato long before I went to Canada.
One trifling feature of this deal was the check for $26,000,000 which Rhodes gave for some of the Barnato interests acquired. The deal with Barnato illustrated the practical operation of one of the rules which guided Rhodes' business life. He once said, "Never fight with a man if you can deal with him." He lived up to this maxim even with the savage Matabeles from whom he wrested Rhodesia.
The diamond rush lured him to Kimberley, where he displayed the resource and ingenuity that led to his organization of the Central mine interests which grouped around the Kimberley Mine. A bitter competition developed between the Rhodes and Barnato groups. Kimberley alternated between boom and bankruptcy. The genius of diamond mining lies in tempering output to demand.
All men made money when they came to South Africa, Barney Barnato, Rhodes they all made money out of the country, eight millions, twelve millions, twenty-six millions, forty millions; why should not he! Peter Halket started suddenly and listened. But it was only the wind coming up the kopje like a great wheezy beast creeping upwards; and he looked back into the fire.
Rhodes realized that indiscriminate production would ruin the market, so he framed up the deal that made him the diamond dictator. He made Barnato an offer which was refused. With the aid of the Rothschilds in London Rhodes secretly bought out the French interests in the Barnato holdings for $6,000,000, which got his foot, so to speak, in the doorway of the opposition.
But even this did not give him a working wedge. He was angling with other big stockholders and required some weeks time to consummate the deal. Meanwhile Barnato accumulated an immense stock of diamonds which he threatened to dump on the market and demoralize the price.
The Beits, the Neumanns and the Wernhers were German Jews; Barney Barnato was supposed to have been born under the shade of a Portuguese synagogue, and considered the fact as being just as glorious a one as would have been that of having in his veins "all the blood of all the Howards."
"Ah!" said Peter; "I haven't seen many from that part yet. I came out with a lot on board ship; and I've seen Barnato and Beit; but they're not very much like you. I suppose it's coming from Palestine makes the difference." All fear of the stranger had now left Peter Halket. "Come a little nearer the fire," he said, "you must be cold, you haven't too much wraps. I'm chill in this big coat."
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