The nearer man—a stout corporal—dropped his end of the measuring-tape. The other wound it up slowly.
"We'll have to lay the trench through here," said the officer; and quoted, "'I'm sorry for Mr Naboth—I'm sorry to cause him pain;' but you, corporal, must find him and tell him he'll get compensation for disturbance." He pocketed his note-book, turned, and mounted the slope towards the encampment. The soldier holding the spool on the far side of the dip finished winding the tape very leisurably; which gave it the movement and appearance of a long snake crawling back to him across Nicky-Nan's potato-tops and over Nicky-Nan's fence. Then, shutting the spool with a click, he turned away and followed his officer. The stout corporal, left alone, seated himself on a soft cushion of thyme, drew forth a pipe from his hip-pocket, and was in the act of lighting it when Nicky-Nan descended upon him.
"And 'oo may you be?" asked the stout corporal, turning about as he puffed.
"You—you've no business here!" stammered Nicky wrathfully. "The first sojer I catch trespassin' on my piece o' ground, I'll have the law on him!"
"Hullo! Be you the owner o' this patch, then?"
"Yes, I be: and I tell 'ee you've no business messin' around my property."
The corporal removed the pipe from his mouth and rubbed its bowl
softly against the side of his nose. "So you said, to be sure.
I didn' laugh at the moment, not bein' a triggerish chap at a joke.
But it'll come in time. That's why I joined the sappers."
"Eh?"
"I takes a pleasure in redoocin' things. . . . Well, if you be the owner o' this here patch, the pleasure is mootual, for you've saved me time an' trouble over and above your speakin' so humorous. And what might your name be, makin' so bold?"
"Nanjivell."