“Ah!” sighed the poor fellow, with a look of relief. “I’m a bit down, mate, with having so little to eat, and it makes me think. Thankye; that’s done me a lot o’ good.”
He settled down upon the sack which formed his couch, and the orderly rose to take back the tin, not seeing that Corporal May’s eyes were fixed upon the vessel, which he watched eagerly, as if expecting to see it refilled and brought to him. But the orderly merely set it down, and made a vicious blow at a buzzing fly.
“Well, what have I done?” whined the corporal.
“Done? Heverythink you shouldn’t have done,” said the orderly. “Look here, corp’ral; next time the barber cuts your hair, you ask him to take a bit off the end of your tongue. It’s too long, mate.”
“Do you want me to report you to the doctor for refusing to bring me a drink?”
“Not I,” said the orderly coolly. “The chief’s got quite enough to do without listening to the men’s complaints.”
“Then bring me a drink of water directly.”
“All right,” said the man good-humouredly; “but you’d better not.”
“Better not? Why?”
“Because it only makes you cry. Runs out of your eyes again in big drops, just as it does out of another fellow’s skin in perspiration. Strikes me, corp’ral, that you were meant for a gal.”