Albert’s uncle said, of course, no one could be sure that the dragon’s teeth hadn’t come up in the good old-fashioned way, but that, on the other hand, it was barely possible that both the British and the enemy were only volunteers having a field-day or sham fight, and he rather thought the Cocked-Hatted Man was not a general, but a doctor. And the man with a red pennon carried behind him MIGHT have been the umpire.
Oswald never told the others a word of this. Their young breasts were all panting with joy because they had saved their country; and it would have been but heartless unkindness to show them how silly they had been. Besides, Oswald felt he was much too old to have been so taken in—if he HAD been. Besides, Albert’s uncle did say that no one could be sure about the dragon’s teeth.
The thing that makes Oswald feel most that, perhaps, the whole thing was a beastly sell, was that we didn’t see any wounded. But he tries not to think of this. And if he goes into the army when he grows up, he will not go quite green. He has had experience of the arts of war and the tented field. And a real colonel has called him ‘Comrade-in-Arms’, which is exactly what Lord Roberts called his own soldiers when he wrote home about them.
CHAPTER 14. ALBERT’S UNCLE’s GRANDMOTHER; OR, THE LONG-LOST
The shadow of the termination now descended in sable thunder-clouds upon our devoted nobs. As Albert’s uncle said, ‘School now gaped for its prey’. In a very short space of time we should be wending our way back to Blackheath, and all the variegated delightfulness of the country would soon be only preserved in memory’s faded flowers. (I don’t care for that way of writing very much. It would be an awful swot to keep it up—looking out the words and all that.)
To speak in the language of everyday life, our holiday was jolly nearly up. We had had a ripping time, but it was all but over. We really did feel sorry—though, of course, it was rather decent to think of getting back to Father and being able to tell the other chaps about our raft, and the dam, and the Tower of Mystery, and things like that.
When but a brief time was left to us, Oswald and Dicky met by chance in an apple-tree. (That sounds like ‘consequences’, but it is mere truthfulness.) Dicky said—
‘Only four more days.’
Oswald said, ‘Yes.’