“Not going to. Sooner knock your head off. But look here, my lad; you have your work cut out, and we’re going to show Hulton that he has got the right lad to grow up into our ways and fill poor Morrison’s place.”
“We are going?” said Dick wonderingly.
“Of course; I’m going to help.”
Chapter V.
A Test of Pluck.
Dick wanted no morning trumpet to call him; he was awake before daylight, to lie thinking, his brain excited by the novelty of his position and the thoughts of all he had to go through.
To put it plainly, he felt new and nervous; but he recalled the fact that it was his own doing—it had been his ambition to get appointed to the Flying Artillery. “And to-day,” he said to himself, “I have to begin to learn how to fly, and that means having some falls. Well, if I do I won’t holloa. I don’t mean to show I’m hurt.”
This was while he was having his apology for a tub, but it was most enjoyable after a hot night, though awkward, and consisted in squatting down in a shallow tin and pouring earthen jars of cold water over his head, to run down his back.
“’Tis freshening,” he muttered; “makes one feel ready for everything.”
He was hard at work towelling when a trumpet sounded so peculiarly that he laughed.