He went off on tiptoe, glancing at Bracy as he passed, and then stooped down over a patch of glittering snow, scraping up a handful and straightening himself in the sunshine, as he amused himself by addressing an imaginary personage.
“Say, gov’nor,” he cried, “you’ve got a bigger stock than you’ll get shut of to-day.—Eh? You don’t expect to? Right you are, old man. Break yer barrer if yer tried to carry it away. Say; looks cleaner and nicer to-day without any o’ that red or yeller paint mixed up with it. I like it best when it’s white. Looks more icy.—What say? Spoon? No, thank ye. Your customers is too fond o’ sucking the spoons, and I never see you wash ’em after.—Ha! this is prime. Beats Whitechapel all to fits; and it’s real cold, too. I don’t care about it when it’s beginning to melt and got so much juist.—But I say! Come! Fair play’s a jewel. One likes a man to make his profit and be ’conimycal with the sugar, but you ain’t put none in this.
“Never mind,” he added after a pause, during which the Italian ice-vendor faded out of his imagination; “it’s reg’lar ’freshing when you’re so sleepy. Wonder what made them Italians come to London and start selling that stuff o’ theirs. Seems rum; ours don’t seem a country for that sort o’ thing. Baked taters seems so much more English, and does a chap so much more good.”
He walked back to the warm patch of rock, looked at Bracy, and then placed both rifles and bayonets ready, sat down cross-legged, and after withdrawing the cartridges, set to work with an oily rag to remove all traces of rust, and gave each in turn a good polish, ending by carefully wiping the bayonets after unfixing them, and returning them to their sheaths, handling Bracy’s most carefully, for fear of disturbing the sleeper. This done, he began to yawn again, and, as he expressed it, took another penny ice and nodding at vacancy, which he filled with a peripatetic vendor, he said:
“All right, gov’nor; got no small change. Pay next time I come this way.”
Then he marked out a beat, and began marching up and down.
“Bah!” he cried; “that ice only makes you feel dry and thirsty.—My! how sleepy I am!—Here, steady!” he cried, as he yawned horribly; “you’ll have your head right off, old man, if you do that.—Never was so sleepy in my life.”
He marched up and down a little faster—ten paces and turn—ten paces and turn—up and down, up and down, in the warm sunshine; but it was as if some deadly stupor enveloped him, and as he kept up the steady regulation march, walking and turning like an automaton, he was suddenly fast asleep and dreaming for quite a minute, when he gave a violent start, waking himself, protesting loudly against a charge made against him, and all strangely mixed up the imaginary and the real.
“Swear I wasn’t, Sergeant!” he cried angrily. “Look for yerself.—Didn’t yer see, pardners? I was walking up and down like a clockwork himidge.—Sleep at my post? Me sleep at my post? Wish I may die if I do such a thing. It’s the old game. Yer allus ’ated me, Sergeant, from the very first, and— Phew! Here! What’s the matter? I’ve caught something, and it’s got me in the nut. I’m going off my chump.”
Poor Gedge stood with his hands clasped to his forehead, staring wildly before him.