“Yes, uncle.”
“And you said it wasn’t true?”
“Of course, uncle.”
“Got yourself knocked into a mummy, then, for defending me?”
“Yes, uncle; but I’m not much hurt.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the old man, frowning, and looking at the lad through his half-closed eyes. “Said it was not true, then?”
“Of course, uncle,” cried the boy, flushing indignantly.
“Humph! Thankye, my boy; but, you see, it was true.”
Aleck’s eyes glittered as he stared blankly at the fierce-looking old man. For the declaration sounded horrible. His uncle had been one of the bravest of soldiers in the boy’s estimation, and time after time he had sat and gloated over the trophy formed by the old officer’s sword and pistols, surmounted by the military cap, hanging in the study. Many a time, too, he had in secret carefully swept away the dust. More than once, too, in his uncle’s absence he had taken down and snapped the pistols at some imaginary foe, and felt a thrill of pleasure as the old flints struck off a tiny shower of brilliant stars from the steel pan cover. At other times, too, he had carefully lifted the sword from its hooks and tugged till the bright blade came slowly out of its leathern scabbard, cut and thrust with it to put enemies to flight, and longed to carry it to the tool-shed to treat it to a good whetting with the rubber the gardener used for his scythe, for the rounded edge held out no promise of cutting off a Frenchman’s head. And now for the old hero of his belief to tell him calmly and without the slightest hesitation that the charge was true was so staggering, so beyond belief, that the blank look of dismay produced by the assertion gradually gave place to a smile of incredulity, and at last the boy exclaimed:
“Oh, uncle! You are joking!”