look here; next time you have it done I should advise you to have a bit taken off the tip of your tongue. It’s too long, Pete; and if I were as strict an officer as the Major says I ought to be, I should report you for want of respect.”
“Not you, sir!”
“What!”
“Because you knows, sir, as I feels more respect for you than I do for the whole regiment put together. I talks a bit, and I never come anigh you, sir, without feeling slack.”
“Feeling slack?”
“Yes, sir. Unbuttoned-like, and as if I was smiling all over.”
“What! at your officer?”
“No, sir; not at you, sir. I can’t tell you why; only I don’t feel soldier-like—drilled up and stiff as if I had been starched by one of my comrades’ wives.”
“Well, you are a rum fellow, Pete.”
“Yes, sir,” said the man sadly. “That’s what our chaps say; and Patient Job says I am a disgrace to the regiment, that I know nothing, and that I shall never make a soldier. But I don’t care. Still, I do know one thing: I like you, sir; and if it hadn’t been for seeing you always getting into trouble—”
“Peter Pegg!”
“Yes, sir. But I can’t stop saying it, sir. If it hadn’t been for you, and seeing you always getting into trouble too—”
“Pegg!”
“Yes, sir—I should have pegged out.”
“What! deserted?”
“Yes, sir. Sounds bad, don’t it?”
“Disgraceful!”
“Yes, Mr. Maine, sir; but ain’t it disgraceful for a sergeant to be allowed to hit a poor fellow a whack with that cane of his just because he’s a bit out in his drill?”
“Drop it, Pete.”
“And ’im obliged to stand up stiff, and dursen’t say a word?”
“Didn’t you hear me say, ‘Drop it’?”
“Yes, sir—and one’s blood b’iling all the while!”
“Look here; you have been having it again, then, Pete?”
“Again, sir! Why, I am always a-having of it.”
“What was it, now?”
“I telled you, sir: nothing.”
“That was a lie, Pete. Now, wasn’t it?”
“Not a lie, sir. Only a little cracker.”
“Well, out with it.”
“Not enough pipeclay, sir.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Jigger the pipeclay! It’s a regular cuss. Ah, it’s you laughing now, sir. Can I do anything else for you, sir?”
“N–n–no.”
“ ’Cause the cook will be howling after me directly, and I don’t want to be out with him.”
“No, I suppose not; but what about that bait for fishing?”
“Oh, that’s all right, sir. I will be ready. But don’t you think, sir, if we was to go higher up the river we could find a better place? It don’t seem much good only ketching them there little hikong-sammylangs.”
“Eikon Sambilang, Pete. Don’t you know what that means?”
“That’s what the niggers call them, sir. I suppose it’s because it’s their name.”
“Five-barbelled fish, Pete, eh?”
“Just like them, sir. Then why don’t they call them barbel, sir, like we do? I have seen lots of them ketched up Teddington way by the gentlemen in punts—whackers, too—not poor little tiddlers like these ’ere. We ought to go right up the river in a sampan, with plenty of bait, and try in a bit of sharp stream close to one of them deep holes.”
“No good, Pete. We shouldn’t do any good. Those beauties of crocodiles clear out the holes.”
“What! whacking the water, sir, with their tails? I’ve heerd them lots of times. Rum place this ’ere, sir, ain’t it?”
“Yes, Pete; rather a change from England. But it is very beautiful, and I like it.”
“Well, yes, sir; that’s right enough. So do I like it. I often think it would be just lovely if old Ripsy would get down with the fever. My word! what would he be like when Dr. Morley had done with him, and he began to crawl about and use his cane to help him hobble, instead of being so jolly handy with it in his fashion?”
“Peter Pegg, that’s a nasty, revengeful way of talking.”
“Is it, sir?” said the young private, giving himself a twist, as if in recollection of a tap with the cane.
“Yes. You don’t mean to tell me that you wish Sergeant Ripsy would catch this nasty jungle fever?”
“No, sir, I don’t want to tell you; but I do.”
“I don’t believe you, Pete. The Sergeant’s a fine soldier and a brave man, and I honestly believe that he thinks he is doing his duty.”
“Oh, he’s brave enough, I dare say. So are you, sir.”
“Bosh!”
“So am I, sir.”
“Double bosh! Turkish for nothing, Pete.”
“Is it, sir? I don’t care. I know when the row comes off with that there Rajah Solomon—and there’s a pretty bit of cheek, sir: him, a reg’lar heathen, going and getting himself called by a Christian name! I should like to give him Solomon—you’ll fight with the best of them, sir. I often think about it. You’ll fight with the best of them, sir. And ’tain’t brag, Mr. Archie Maine, sir—you let me see one of them beggars coming at you with his pisoned kris or his chuck-spear, do you mean to tell me I wouldn’t let him have the bayonet? And bad soldier or no, I can do the bayonet practice with the best of them. Old Tipsy did own to that.”
“Look here, Pete; you are what the Yankees call blowing now. Let’s wait till the time comes, and then we shall see what we shall see. And look here; don’t you let me hear you call Sergeant Ripsy Tipsy again. One of these days, mark my words, he will find out that you have nicknamed him with a T instead of an R, and he will never forgive you.”
“Tckkk!”
“What are you laughing at,
