"Well," began Jimmie, pursuing the subject, "I'm not shot yet and you're not shot, but in the language of the little old United States you certainly act like a fellow just about half-shot."
"Half-shot?" inquired the German in a puzzled manner. "How can a man be half-shot? He would then be only kerwundete."
"You and I are getting on famously, Old Man," Jimmie observed, half laughing. "From all appearances you'd like to stand me up against a wall at sunrise and I'd like to see you in Halifax."
"Halifax?" queried the soldier. "You speak of strange places."
"Well, all right," Jimmie replied. "I guess we'd better be going now, so I'll get my bucket from the place where I dumped its contents into the ditch and we will go back to camp. I hold no resentment against you for your harsh treatment of me, especially since you weigh just about three times as much as I do."
"The bucket will do well enough where it is," came the answer in a low tone, cold as ice. "Just now you will appear before the Captain. Do you not know you are under arrest?"
"Under arrest?" puzzled Jimmie. "Who's pinching me?"
"Ach! Ach!" protested the soldier, raising his hands in a gesture of despair. "What a strange person! What a strange language!"
"You're quite right there," Jimmie said, "and if I had my way we'd be stranger still. Yes," he added, "I think we'd be still strangers. That would just about suit me to perfection."
"Come on, now," the German ordered, with a trace of impatience tinging his phlegmatic manner. "Long enough we have waited."