“Yes, it is all very fine, but you ain’t got a wound, and don’t know how hard it is to lie still. I try and try, and I know how it hurts me if I do move, but I feel as if I must move all the same. I say, I wish we had got a book! I could keep quiet if you read to me.”
“I wish I had one, Punch, but I must talk to you instead.”
“Well, tell us a story.”
“I can’t, Punch.”
“Yes, you can; you did tell me your story about how you came to take the shilling.”
“Well, yes, I did tell you that.”
“Of course you did, comrade. Well, that’s right. Tell us again.”
“Nonsense! You don’t want to hear that again.”
“Oh, don’t I? But I do. I could listen to that a hundred times over. It sets me thinking about how I should like to punch somebody’s head—your somebody, I mean. Tell us all about it again.”
“No, no; don’t ask me to do that, Punch,” said Pen, wrinkling up his forehead.