“Eh? What?”
“That mug o’ your’n, else you’d ha’ been in the Black Hole half your time for laughin’ at your officers.”
“Yah! Just as if I can help bein’ a good-tempered lookin’ chap. Dessay as I should make as good a sojer as most on ’em as you see over yonder at those towns. Better be allus on the smile than lookin’ savage at everyone.”
“Ay, to be sure, Smiler. Wonder, though, what did make this poor chap do it? He’s a young un, too, for a sojer. I say, any on you hear his pistol go off last night?”
No one answered; but the man who held the revolver began to examine it.
“Here, just you mind what you’re about with that thing,” said Smiler. “I’ve heard as they’ll go off six times o’ running. Say, would it hurt un, if I lit my pipe?”
“Nay,” said Joey, “and I’d thank one o’ you kindly if he’d take mine out o’ my pocket and fill and light it for me. Can’t be very long now before doctor comes, and I must hold him here downright to stop the bleeding. Ah! I can feel his heart beating just gentle like.”
“You can?”
“Ay; and it’s a wonder, too. Poor lad! he’s been bleeding like a pig.”
The lighting of pipes was preceded by the careful putting away of the pistol, and just as the men were all puffing contentedly away, Smiler said—