He approached me and said something which I couldn't make anything of. Presently I disentangled, "You should never dread the baynit, miss."
"But I'm not dreading," I said, annoyed, "I ... I love it."
He said he was cold, and added: "I bin wounded. If you come to that lamp you can see me stripe."
We went to the lamp. "It's them buses," he complained, "they won't stop when I halt 'em."
"But why do you want to stop them? They can't poison the horse-troughs."
"It's me duty," he said. "There's one comin'."
A bus, coming the opposite way, bore down upon us with an unwieldy rush and roar—the last bus, in a hurry to get to bed.
"You'll see," he said pessimistically.
"'Alt! 'Alt, there!" The bus, with three soldiers hanging on the step, rushed past us, and seemed to slow a little. The sentry ran a few paces towards it, crying "'Alt!" But it gathered speed and boomed on again, buzzing away between the gas-lamps. He returned to me sadly.
"I don't believe they can hear," I said, and gave him some chocolates and went on.