“Oh, well then, I needn’t mind saying I hope not too. I never was anything in that line, sir, even when I was a boy.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Difference, sir? Oh, all the difference. Men can fight, of course; but if I was a king, and wanted to have a good army, I’d make it of boys.”
Jack stared at him, and in spite of the peril of their position, felt disposed to smile.
“Why?” he said at last.
“Because they can fight so. They’re not so big and strong; but then they’re not so easily frightened. They’re always ready for a set-to, and ’cepting where there’s snakes in the way, they never think of danger, or being hurt. And when they are hurt, the more they feel it, the more they go, just like horses or donkeys.”
“Excepting in the case of snakes,” said Jack bitterly.
“Oh, don’t you mind about that, sir. I was as scared as you were, I can tell you. I remember when I was a boy I wasn’t good at fighting, and I used to get what we used to call the coward’s blow, and that was the rum part of it.”
Jack stared.
“Ah, you don’t understand that, sir. But it was rum. You see it was like this; t’other chap as was crowing over me because I wouldn’t fight, would give me an out-and-out good whack for the coward’s blow, and then he wished he hadn’t.”