But when we arrived, the old fellow pointed at Ed with his jack-knife, and addressed us.
"He wants to know if I ever was in a battle!"
Evidently the question had been an absurd one. We gathered this from the tone of derision with which it was repeated, and we promptly showed our appreciation of its absurdity by grinning. We marvelled at Ed's obtuseness. Not to recognize this round-faced old man in the dark-blue suit as the very incarnation of war could only be downright stupidity.
"Was I ever in a battle?" he inquired with deliberate sarcasm. "Well, I don't know what you call a battle, but what do you think of a hundred an' thirty guns on one hill an' eighty guns on another hill, all blazing away at each other like Sancho?"
We thought well of it. It seemed to us a very respectable battle. But Ed Mason was destined to put his foot in it again. He held up the little pine musket.
"Guns like this?" he queried.
The old fellow looked at Ed for a moment. Then he turned his gaze toward Jimmy and me and shook his head sorrowfully.
"No, not guns like that. Them's what the infantry has. A hundred an' thirty of them against eighty wouldn't be no battle. 'Twould be a squeamish. An' a darned small one at that. I mean guns. Don't you know what guns be?"
Jimmy Toppan spoke.
"Oh, I know! Cannons. Like the one they fired last Fourth of July, down at the foot of River Street."