“Double bosh! Turkish for nothing, Pete.”
“Is it, sir? I don’t care. I know when the row comes off with that there Rajah Solomon—and there’s a pretty bit of cheek, sir: him, a reg’lar heathen, going and getting himself called by a Christian name! I should like to give him Solomon—you’ll fight with the best of them, sir. I often think about it. You’ll fight with the best of them, sir. And ’tain’t brag, Mr Archie Maine, sir—you let me see one of them beggars coming at you with his pisoned kris or his chuck-spear, do you mean to tell me I wouldn’t let him have the bayonet? And bad soldier or no, I can do the bayonet practice with the best of them. Old Tipsy did own to that.”
“Look here, Pete; you are what the Yankees call blowing now. Let’s wait till the time comes, and then we shall see what we shall see. And look here; don’t you let me hear you call Sergeant Ripsy Tipsy again. One of these days, mark my words, he will find out that you have nicknamed him with a T instead of an R, and he will never forgive you.”
“Tckkk!”
“What are you laughing at, sir?”
“Oh, don’t say sir, Mr Archie! There’s no one near. Of course I don’t mind when anybody’s by, but I couldn’t help laughing. Old Patient Job found it out long ago.”
“He did?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And yet you wonder that he has got what you call his knife into you!”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s why, sir.”