“Then say ‘Thank you,’ my lad. Isn’t it a fine thing for you to have a brother with you, and then, when there isn’t a church for hundreds of miles—a brother who can preach to you?”
“No; because I know what you’re going to say—that we ought to go on and fight it out.”
“That’s it, Dicky. Didn’t some one say that the beauty of a British soldier was that he never knew when he was beaten?”
“I’m not a soldier, and I am beaten,” cried Dyke sourly.
“Not you. I know you better. Why, if I said ‘Yes; let’s give it up,’ and packed up all we cared to take, and got the wagon loaded to-night, you’d repent in the morning when we were ready to start, and say, ‘Let’s have another try.’”
“Well, perhaps I might say—”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Joseph Emson; “what a young humbug you are, Dicky. Fancy you going back with me to the old dad, and us saying, ‘Here we are, back again, like two bad shillings, father. We’ve spent all our money, and we’re a pair of failures.’”
“Well, but it is so hot and tiresome, and the ostriches are such horribly stupid beasts, and—”
“We’re both very tired, and disappointed, and thirsty, and—”
“I am, you mean,” said Dyke. “Nothing ever seems to worry you.”