“To gratify a good soldier, I know, but a man who would have everything turned into a fighting place.”
“It is not fair of you, sir,” said Roy, speaking very firmly. “This is no whim on the part of Martlet. Now that we are coming to using the guns, the men must have a place of shelter beneath the platform, and one where the powder may lie ready for handing up. We must have your sleeping-room.”
“Take it then,” cried the secretary. “I give it up; but spare me my little sitting-room.”
“We want that too,” said Roy. “We may have wounded men.”
“Then bring them in there, and I’ll help to dress their wounds; but I must keep that.”
“Surely you can manage without depriving Master Pawson of that place, Roy,” said Lady Royland.
“Thank you, thank you, Lady Royland.—Yes, you hear that, Roy. You can—you must—you shall spare me that poor place. It is so small.”
“And suppose we have an accident, and the powder bestowed in your chamber above is blown up?”
“Well, I shall have died doing my duty,” said the secretary, with humility.
“Wouldn’t it be doing your duty more to try and avoid danger, so as to be useful to us all?” said Roy; and his mother’s eyes flashed with pleasure, while the secretary started to hear such utterances from the mere boy he despised.