Patience Wins: War in the Works

by George Manville Fenn

I attacked them again.

“Oh, I say,” I cried, “don’t talk to a fellow as if he were a little boy! Come, Uncle Dick, what sort of a place is Arrowfield?”

“Land of fire.”

“Oh!” I cried. “Is it, Uncle Jack?”

“Land of smoke.”

“Land of fire and smoke!” I cried excitedly. “Uncle Bob, are they making fun of me?”

“Land of noise, and gloom, and fog,” said Uncle Bob. “A horrible place in a hole.”

“And are we going there?”

“Don’t know,” said Uncle Bob. “Wait and see.”

They went on with their drawings and calculations, and I sat by the fire in the barrack room, that is, in their sitting-room, trying to read, but with my head in a whirl of excitement about Arrowfield, when my father came in, laid his hand on my head, and turned to my uncles.