The long mountaineer: “Well, that’s what he said, anyhow.”
From Joe: “He lied, then.”
“Well,” continued the long-legged mountaineer, “that’s what he said, and he sort o’ lived up to it. If he had any fear, he didn’t show it till that time I was tellin’ you about, when he went all to pieces and showed the white feather.”
“There,” growled Joe, “what did I tell you? He was lying all the time.”
The postscript philosopher on the other side of the fire broke in, saying: “Well, maybe his breakfast went bad on him that morning. An overdone egg would make a coward out of the Duke of Wellington.”
Joe made the general reflection that “some people locate their courage in their transverse colons.”
“What’s a transverse colon?” asked one of the mountaineers. Joe got up, stretched himself, and made no answer. Perhaps none was expected.
“Well,” asked the long-legged mountaineer, “ain’t they people that don’t feel no fear?”
The glib little fellow quickly responded: “Let’s find out. Let’s hold an experience meeting. I suppose we’re a pretty fairly representative body, and I move that each fellow tells honestly how he feels when he is going into battle; for instance, when the skirmishers are at work in front, and we know that the next two minutes will bring on the business.”
“Infernally bad,” growled Joe; “and anybody that pretends to feel otherwise lies.”