‘You did,’ replied Jack.
‘Right. You ain’t a bad sort; I’ll give you a tip. Don’t you make an enemy of Snapper.’
‘Napper, do you mean?’
‘Same man. Name’s Sam Napper; S. Napper—see? We call him Snapper; you can guess why. Give him a wide berth, and don’t try hitting back at him unless you’re sure of getting your blow in, else, as sure as I’m Billy Parkes, you’ll curse the day you ever made the Queen’s bad bargain.’
Almost before this speech, a very long one for Parkes, was finished, that gentleman was asleep; and making a shrewd guess that by ‘the Queen’s bad bargain’ Parkes meant enlisting, Jack sat quietly down and thought over the situation.
That Napper was a bully he had already seen; that he was of a low disposition he guessed, and that he set the young trumpeters a bad example he feared. It was clear there would be trouble between them; he was not going to sit down under tyranny. He would do his duty cheerfully and manfully, and try to please Napper; if things went wrong—well, they would see.
This being settled, Jack thought it a good opportunity to write to his mother an account of all that had happened, and explain to her how it was he had become a trumpeter in the ‘Death or Glory Boys.’ He procured some note-paper from the canteen, and then set to work to write a long letter. He was just finishing, when, with a clatter and a jingle, laughing and talking, the rest of the trumpeters, headed by Napper, came trooping into the room. Hodson went up to Jack.
‘Well, chummy, what are you doing?’ he asked.
Napper interrupted. ‘Can’t you see he’s writing to his mammy.—Requesting the old girl to send you a bob’s worth of stamps, eh?’ he asked of Jack.
The latter took no notice, but folding his letter, put it in the envelope.