" There was no
suggestion of sprain in the flung-back left boot. "Now walk in front of
me, both arms perpendicularly elevated. I'm only a third-class shot, so,
if you don't object, I'll rest the muzzle of my rifle lightly but firmly
on your collar-button--coverin' the serviceable vertebree. If your friends
see us thus engaged, you pray--'ard."
Private and prisoner staggered downhill. No shots broke the peace of the
afternoon, but once the young man checked and was sick.
"There's a lot of things I could say to you," Copper observed, at the
close of the paroxysm, "but it doesn't matter. Look 'ere, you call me
'pore Tommy' again."
The prisoner hesitated.
"Oh, I ain't goin' to do anythin' _to_ you. I'm recon-noiterin' in my own.
Say 'pore Tommy' 'alf-a-dozen times."
The prisoner obeyed.
"_That's_ what's been puzzlin' me since I 'ad the pleasure o' meetin'
you," said Copper. "You ain't 'alf-caste, but you talk _chee-chee_--
_pukka_ bazar chee-chee. Proceed."
"Hullo," said the Sergeant of the picket, twenty minutes later, "where did
you round him up?"
"On the top o' yonder craggy mounting. There's a mob of 'em sitting round
their Bibles seventeen 'undred yards (you said it was seventeen 'undred?)
t'other side--an' I want some coffee." He sat down on the smoke-blackened
stones by the fire.
"'Ow did you get 'im?" said McBride, professional humorist, quietly
filching the English weekly from under Copper's armpit.
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