“Why, there’s no powder,” I said.
“Powder! Eh, but there is: lots, my lad.”
“But there are no cannon-balls.”
Old Sam stopped short with the mop right in the gun, and loosening one hand, he tilted his old sou’-wester hat that he wore summer and winter with no difference, only that he kept cabbage-leaves in it in summer, and stood scratching his head.
“No cannon-balls!” he said. “No cannon-balls!”
“Not one,” I said; “only the big one indoors we use for a door-weight, and that would not go in.”
“Well, now, that be a rum un, Master Sep, that be a rum un. I never thought o’ that. Never mind, it don’t matter. They Frenchies ’ll hear the guns go off and see the smoke, and that’s enough for them. They’ll go back again.”
“Go back again,” I said laughing. “Why, they’ll never come.”
“Get out, lad! You’re too young to understand they things. You wait a bit, and you’ll see that they will come and find us ready for them too.”