"Lieutenant Tibbetts," said Hamilton in ponderous reproof, "you are behaving very strangely."
"Look here, dear old Ham," wheedled Bones "can't you pretend you asked me what a Vertical Interval was?"
Hamilton reached round to find something to throw, but this was Sanders's study.
"You have a criminal mind, Bones," he said helplessly. "Now get on with it. What are 'Hachures'?"
"Hachures?" said Bones, shutting his eye. "Hachures? Now I know what Hachures are. A lot of people would think they were chickens, but I know ... they're a sort of line ... when you're drawing a hill ... wiggly-waggly lines ... you know the funny things ... a sort of...." Bones made mysterious and erratic gestures in the air, "shading ... water, dear old friend."
"Are you feeling faint?" asked Hamilton, jumping up in alarm.
"No, silly ass ... shadings... direction of water—am I right, sir?"
"Not being a thought-reader I can't visualize your disordered mind," said Hamilton, "but Hachures are the conventional method of representing hill features by shading in short vertical lines to indicate the slope and the water flow. I gather that you have a hazy idea of what the answer should be."
"I thank you, dear old sir, for that generous tribute to my grasp of military science," said Bones. "An' now proceed to the next torture—which will you have, sir, rack or thumbscrew?—oh, thank you, Horace, I'll have a glass of boiling oil."
"Shut up talking to yourself," growled Hamilton, "and tell me what is meant by 'Orienting a Map'?"