She went in on her own wheels,
and I stencilled her 'Royal Artillery Mess, Woolwich,' on the muzzle, and
he said he'd be grateful if I'd take charge of her to Cape Town, and hand
her over to a man in the Ordnance there. 'How are you fixed financially?
You'll need some money on the way home,' he says at last.
"'For one thing, Cap,' I said, 'I'm not a poor man, and for another I'm
not going home. I am the captive of your bow and spear. I decline to
resign office.'
"'Skittles!' he says (that was a great word of his), 'you'll take parole,
and go back to America and invent another Zigler, a trifle heavier in the
working parts--I would. We've got more prisoners than we know what to do
with as it is,' he says. 'You'll only be an additional expense to me as a
taxpayer. Think of Schedule D,' he says, 'and take parole.'
"'I don't know anything about your tariffs,' I said, 'but when I get to
Cape Town I write home for money, and I turn in every cent my board'll
cost your country to any ten-century-old department that's been ordained
to take it since William the Conqueror came along.'
"'But, confound you for a thick-headed mule,' he says, 'this war ain't any
more than just started! Do you mean to tell me you're going to play
prisoner till it's over?'
"'That's about the size of it,' I says, 'if an Englishman and an American
could ever understand each other.'
"'But, in Heaven's Holy Name, why?' he says, sitting down of a heap on an
anthill.
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