With one hand he was fingering a large brass button, which figured conspicuously in the centre of his small waistcoat, and this button was the subject of his theme.
'My father he rushed forward—"Come on, men; we'll save the old colours!" And they shouted "Hurrah!" as they made after him. There were guns going, and shells flying, and swords flashing and hacking away, and the enemy poured on with fiery red faces and gnashing teeth! My father drew his sword—and no one could stand against him, no one! He cut and he slashed, and heads and arms and legs rolled off as quick as lightning, one after the other. He got up to the colours, and with a shout he plunged his sword right through the enemy's body that had stolen them! The enemy fell stone dead. My father seized the colours and looked round. He was alone! The other soldiers had been beaten back. But was he in a funk? No; he gave a loud "Hurrah!" picked up his sword, and fought his way back, the enemy hard after him. It was a race for life, and he ran backwards the whole way; he wasn't going to turn his back to the enemy. He pressed on, shouting "Hurrah!" till he got to his own side again, and then he reached his colonel.
'"Captain dead, sir I've got the colours!" He saluted as he said it, and then dropped dead himself at the colonel's feet, the blood gushing out of his heart, and over his clothes, and over this button!'
The little orator paused as he sank his voice to a tragic whisper, then raising it again, he added triumphantly, 'And thirty bullets and six swords had gone through my father's body! That was something like a soldier!'
'Oh, I say!' murmured a small sceptic from the crowd, 'it was twenty bullets last time; make it fifty, Teddy!'
'And that's the story of my button,' pursued the boy, ignoring with scorn this last remark.
'And did your father have only one button to his coat?'
The voice was a strange one, and the boys turned round to meet the curious gaze of a sturdy little damsel, who had, unnoticed, joined the group. She was not dressed as an ordinary village child, but in a little rough serge sailor suit, with a large hat to match, set well back on a quantity of loose dark hair. A rosy-cheeked square-set little figure she was, and her brown eyes, fringed with long black lashes, looked straight at Teddy with something of defiance and scorn in their glance.
Though at first a little taken aback, Teddy rose to the occasion.
'One button!' he said with emphasis; 'the coat was sent to mother with only one button left on; and if you—' here he turned upon his questioner with a little fierceness—'if you had been through such a bloody battle, and killed so many men, you would have burst and lost all your buttons, and not had one left, like father!'