‘I Never Did Him a Favor in My Life’

Dr. Malherbe of Natal University said to Field Marshal Smuts as he left a political meeting, “Why were those two hecklers at the back so bitterly hostile?” Smuts replied, “I understand the feelings of one of them very well indeed. He and I were brought up together in the same small town in the Western Cape. I got him his first appointment—and his second. In fact, he owes all his wordily success to me. But I don’t know why the other was so hostile. I never did him a favor in my life.”

From A Thread of Silk , the memoir of Philip Mason, longtime head of the British Institute of Race Relations.