{"product_id":"2940013669208","title":"The Runagates Club","description":"We carry with us the wonders we seek without us; there is all\u003cbr\u003eAfrica and her prodigies in us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSir Thomas Browne:  Religio Medici.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe were talking about the persistence of race qualities--how you\u003cbr\u003emight bury a strain for generations under fresh graftings but the\u003cbr\u003eaboriginal sap would some day stir.  The obvious instance was the\u003cbr\u003eJew, and Pugh had also something to say about the surprises of a\u003cbr\u003etincture of hill blood in the Behari.  Peckwether, the historian,\u003cbr\u003ewas inclined to doubt.  The old stock, he held, could disappear\u003cbr\u003eabsolutely as if by a chemical change, and the end be as remote\u003cbr\u003efrom the beginnings as--to use his phrase--a ripe Gorgonzola from a\u003cbr\u003ebucket of new milk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't believe you're ever quite safe,\" said Sandy Arbuthnot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You mean that an eminent banker may get up one morning with a\u003cbr\u003estrong wish to cut himself shaving in honour of Baal?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Maybe.  But the tradition is more likely to be negative.  There\u003cbr\u003eare some things that for no particular reason he won't like, some\u003cbr\u003ethings that specially frighten him.  Take my own case.  I haven't a\u003cbr\u003escrap of real superstition in me, but I hate crossing a river at\u003cbr\u003enight.  I fancy a lot of my blackguard ancestors got scuppered at\u003cbr\u003emoonlight fords.  I believe we're all stuffed full of atavistic\u003cbr\u003efears, and you can't tell how or when a man will crack till you\u003cbr\u003eknow his breeding.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I think that's about the truth of it,\" said Hannay, and after the\u003cbr\u003ediscussion had rambled on for a while he told us this tale.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust after the Boer War (he said) I was on a prospecting job in the\u003cbr\u003enorth-eastern Transvaal.  I was a mining engineer, with copper as\u003cbr\u003emy speciality, and I had always a notion that copper might be found\u003cbr\u003ein big quantities in the Zoutpansberg foothills.  There was of\u003cbr\u003ecourse Messina at the west end, but my thoughts turned rather to\u003cbr\u003ethe north-east corner, where the berg breaks down to the crook of\u003cbr\u003ethe Limpopo.  I was a young man then, fresh from two years'\u003cbr\u003ecampaigning with the Imperial Light Horse, and I was thirsty for\u003cbr\u003ebetter jobs than trying to drive elusive burghers up against barbed\u003cbr\u003ewire and blockhouses.  When I started out with my mules from\u003cbr\u003ePietersburg on the dusty road to the hills, I think I felt happier\u003cbr\u003ethan ever before in my life.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070191288560,"sku":"2940013669208","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013669208_p0.jpg?v=1763584294","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013669208","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}