Why, you ain't Dutch.
You're English, same as me."
"_No_, khaki. If you cannot talk civilly to a gentleman I will blow your
head off."
Copper cringed, and the action overbalanced him so that he rolled some six
or eight feet downhill, under the lee of a rough rock. His brain was
working with a swiftness and clarity strange in all his experience of Alf
Copper. While he rolled he spoke, and the voice from his own jaws amazed
him: "If you did, 'twouldn't make you any less of a renegid." As a useful
afterthought he added: "I've sprained my ankle."
The young man was at his side in a flash. Copper made no motion to rise,
but, cross-legged under the rock, grunted: "'Ow much did old Krujer pay
you for this? What was you wanted for at 'ome? Where did you desert from?"
"Khaki," said the young man, sitting down in his turn, "you are a shade
better than your mates. You did not make much more noise than a yoke of
oxen when you tried to come up this hill, but you are an ignorant diseased
beast like the rest of your people--eh? When you were at the Ragged
Schools did they teach you any history, Tommy--'istory I mean?"
"Don't need no schoolin' to know a renegid," said Copper. He had made
three yards down the hill--out of sight, unless they could see through
rocks, of the enemy's smoking party.
The young man laughed; and tossed the soldier a black sweating stick of
"True Affection.
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