“I say, but you’re well put together, sir,” remarked the latter. “You’d make a fine soldier, I reckon.”
For an instant Snowball’s tilted face turned hesitatingly toward his flatterer. Then he began once more to laugh.
“You can’t fool me, so you can’t,” he said, sitting down and avoiding the sergeant’s eyes.
“But I’m not trying to fool you, sir,” he averted. “You’d be an A1 man, I swear.”
Snowball shuffled his feet, and drew vigorously on his pipe.
“They wouldn’t take me, so they wouldn’t,” he said seriously with a jerk of his head toward the doorway.
“Well,” said the sergeant, “would you go, if they found you fit?”
“Hain’t no use t-talking about it,” Snowball responded in a melancholy tone. “So they hain’t!”
“Try them, sir, try them—won’t you?”
“Come with me, sir,” he added, taking Snowball’s arm, when much to his surprise, the latter rose and accompanied him.