But they was sound on the Zigler. They
had all admired her. I made out a fairy-story of me being wearied of the
war, and having pushed the gun at them these last three months in the hope
they'd capture it and let me go home. That tickled 'em to death. They made
me say it three times over, and laughed like kids each time. But half the
British _are_ kids; specially the older men. My Captain Mankeltow was less
of it than the others. He talked about the Zigler like a lover, Sir, and I
drew him diagrams of the hopper-feed and recoil-cylinder in his note-book.
He asked the one British question I was waiting for, 'Hadn't I made my
working-parts too light?' The British think weight's strength.
"At last--I'd been shy of opening the subject before--at last I said,
'Gentlemen, you are the unprejudiced tribunal I've been hunting after. I
guess you ain't interested in any other gun-factory, and politics don't
weigh with you. How did it feel your end of the game? What's my gun done,
anyway?'
"'I hate to disappoint you,' says Captain Mankeltow, 'because I know you
feel as an inventor.' I wasn't feeling like an inventor just then. I felt
friendly, but the British haven't more tact than you can pick up with a
knife out of a plate of soup.
"'The honest truth,' he says, 'is that you've wounded about ten of us one
way and another, killed two battery horses and four mules, and--oh, yes,'
he said, 'you've bagged five Kaffirs.
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