“Well, I do.”
“No, sir; it’s his aggravating way of wanting to see a company of human men going across the parade like a great big caterpillar or a big bit of a machine raking up the sand.”
“Never mind. Old Ripsy is a fine soldier, and I advise you not to let him hear you.”
“Pst!”
“What is it?”
“Mr Maine, sir,” whispered the lad; and the subaltern’s heels dropped at once from the table upon which they had been resting, for plainly heard through the window, in a loud, forced cough, full of importance, came the utterance, “Errrrum! Errum!” and Private Peter Pegg’s lower jaw dropped, and his eyes, as he fixed them upon the subaltern’s face, opened in so ghastly a stare of dread that, in spite of his annoyance, Ensign Maine’s hands were clapped to his mouth to check a guffaw. But as the regular stamp more than stride of a heavy man reached his ears, the young officer’s countenance assumed a look of annoyance, and he whispered in a boyish, nervous way:
“Slip off, Pete; and don’t let him see you leaving my room.”
“I can’t, sir,” whispered the lad, with a look full of agony.
“What!”
“He telled me if ever he catched me loafing about your quarters he’d—”