They looked down at the unconscious Bones for a long time in silence.
"What will he say when I kick him?" asked Hamilton. "You can have the first guess."
Sanders frowned thoughtfully.
"He'll say that he was thinking out a new system of communicating trenches," he said. "He's been boring me to tears over saps and things."
Hamilton shook his head.
"Wrong, sir," he said; "that isn't the lie he'll tell. He will say that I kept him up so late last night working at the men's pay-sheets that he couldn't keep awake."
Bones slept on.
"He may say that it was coffee after tiffin," suggested Sanders after a while; "he said the other day that coffee always made him sleep."
"'Swoon' was the word he used, sir," corrected Hamilton. "I don't think he'll offer that suggestion now—the only other excuse I can think of is that he was repeating the Bomongo irregular verbs. Bones!"
He stooped and broke off a long grass and inserted it in the right ear of Lieutenant Tibbetts, twiddling the end delicately. Bones made a feeble clutch at his ear, but did not open his eyes.