"Dop," being the native name for the cheapest and most villainous of Cape
brandies, has come to signify alcoholic drinks in general to men of many
nations dwelling under the subtropical South African sun. Thus,
apple-brandy, and peach liqueur, "Old Squareface," in the squat,
four-sided bottles beloved no less by Dutchman and Afrikander, American
and Briton, Paddy from Cork, and Heinrich from the German Fatherland, than
by John Chinkey--in default of arrack--and the swart and woolly-headed
descendant of Ham, may be signified under the all-embracing designation.
It did not matter what the liquor was, the bar-tenders were aware who
served the Dop Doctor, as long as the stuff scorched the throat and
stupefied the brain, and you got enough of it for your money.
His eyes were blood-red with brutal debauch now, as he neared the De
Boursy-Williams dwelling, a one-storied, soft brick-built,
corrugated-iron-roofed house on Harris Street, behind the Market Square.
It had been a store, but green and white paint and an iron garden-fence
had turned it into a gentlemanly residence for a medical practitioner.
Mrs. De Boursy-Williams, a lady of refinement, stamped with the
ineffaceable cachet of Bayswater, had hung cheap lace curtains in all the
windows, tying them up with silk sashes of Transvaal green. Between the
wooden pillars of the stoep dangled curtains yet other, of chopped, dyed,
and threaded bamboo, while whitewashed drain-pipes, packed with earth and
set on end, overflowed with Indian cress, flowering now in extravagant,
gorgeous hues of red and brown, sulphur and orange.
The Dop Doctor, left to maintain the inviolate sanctity of this English
Colonial home, hiccoughed as he stumbled up the stately flight of three
cement steps that led between white-painted railings, enclosing on the
left hand a narrow strip of garden with some dusty mimosa shrubs growing
in it, to the green door that bore the brass plate, and had the red lamp
fitted in the hall-light above it. The plate bore this comprehensive
inscription:
G. DE BOURSY-WILLIAMS, M.D., F.R.C.S. Lond.