“I’ve got some news for you, too.”
“Look here,” said Brumpton. “I must be off. Stop with him as long as you can, Jerry Brigley.—I say, why don’t you have your flute, and practise a bit?”
Dick looked up from the easy-chair in which he lay back, and his eyes brightened; but they turned dull again, and he shook his head.
As soon as the sergeant had gone, Dick spoke.
“What is your news?” he said, feebly.
“Shan’t tell you, if you don’t pluck up a bit! You ought to be well by now. Why, it is a whole blessed month since that unlucky night, and here have you been bad ever since with burning and fever; and it’s been a wonder to me as nobody understood what you were talking about. You let the cat out of the bag lots of times, but I was the only one as understood the connundydrum.”
“Tell me your news,” said Dick, wearily.
Jerry picked up a bouquet standing in water, sniffed it, and set it down again, watching the patient furtively as he went on ignoring the question.
“Here was Mr Lacey knocked up for a few days after his singeing, and gets right again, though his head of ’air is still orful to be’old; and it’s on’y by cutting the other side so short as to make something like a match to the singed-off side where he was burnt that I made him able to go out when he got better. Soldiers do wear their hair pretty close, but his head looked quite indecent; and, as for his starshers, they’re like a bit o’ black toothbrush worn stumpy.”
“You said that you had some news,” said Dick, angrily.