Now it was Mrs Boothby, who was not at all the bully who seeks a bully stronger than herself. Nor was she insensitive about intruding herself. And yet, even after she must have understood with her nerves, if not her intelligence — she was not an intelligent woman — that she was being bullied, she would come back again and again for more. She did not succumb into flustered satisfaction at having been ‘given a hiding’, like Mrs Fowler, or get coy and girlish like Mrs James at the Gainsborough; she would listen patiently, and argue back, engage herself so to speak with the surface of the talk, ignoring the underlying insolence, and in this way she sometimes even shamed Willi and Paul back into courtesy. But in private sometimes I am sure she must sometimes have flushed up, clenching her fists, and muttering: ‘Yes, I’d like to hit them. Yes, I should have hit him when he said that.’

That evening Paul almost at once started on one of his favourite games — parodying the Colonial clichés to the point where the Colonial in question must become aware he or she was being made fun of. And Willi joined in.

‘Your cook has, of course, been with you for years — would you like a cigarette?’

‘Thank you, my dear, but I don’t smoke. Yes, he’s a good boy, I must say that for him, he’s always been very loyal.’

‘He’s almost one of the family, I should think?’

‘Yes, I think of him like that. And he’s very fond of us, I’m sure. We’ve always treated him fair.’

‘Perhaps not so much as a friend as a child?’ (This was Willi.) ‘Because they are nothing but great big children.’

‘Yes, that’s true. They’re just children when you really understand them. They like to be treated the way you’d treat a child — firm, but right. Mr Boothby and I believe in treating the blacks fair. It’s only right.’

‘But on the other hand, you mustn’t let them take advantage of you,’ said Paul. ‘Because if you do, they lose all respect.’

‘I’m glad to hear you say that, Paul, because most of you English boys have all kinds of fancy ideas about the kaffirs. But it’s true. They have to know there’s a line they must never step over.’ And so on and so on and so on.