“How is your wound, Dumlow?” I said, loudly. “Hurt you much?”
“Don’t shout, Mr Dale, sir. I’m a-goin’ out to braxfass with a lady, and I don’t want her to hear as I’ve had a hole punched in me, or she’ll be thinking about it all the time.”
“But does it hurt you much?” I asked.
“Tidy, sir. Sometimes it’s better; sometimes it’s worse. ’Tarn’t a nat’ral way o’ taking blue pill, and consekently it don’t agree with you. But don’t you worry about that, nor me neither: I arn’t killed yet.”
As Dumlow spoke, the others got carefully by me, and passed on out of sight. Then it came to his turn.
“Stand fast, sir,” he said. “I don’t want to shove you down into that hole. Looks just like my old mother’s washus used to on heavy days. She was a laundress out at Starch Green, she was, and—hff!”
“What’s the matter?” I said, for the man uttered a peculiar sound.
“Just a bit of a nip from that there bullet, that’s all, sir. That’s better now I’m by. ’Tis a bit steamy, though, eh?”
“Horrible,” I said; “but I say, do let Mr Frewen see to your wound. It isn’t right to leave it.”
“Course it ain’t; but I put it to you, as a young gent who’s got a head of his own, and got it screwed on right, as you’ve showed us more’n once; can I go and get a bite and sup, and can the doctor see to my leg and go on pumping, and all at the same time?”