The phlegmatic Trailey had never enjoyed himself so much since he had dozed through two consecutive three-day county cricket matches the previous summer. He slept continually.
Having thus fortified himself, and stored up a large reserve of energy, he ventured, late in the afternoon of the second day's stay at the camp, to go out into the storm to cut a small sapling for the purpose of manufacturing two or three short pegs with which to fasten down the wall of the marquee. A draught was seriously interfering with his somnolence.
With great care he chose a nice, quiet-looking little tree about two inches thick, and decided, with admirable judgment, to sever its massive trunk at a point about two feet from the ground.
"Ah-h," he exhaled to himself, "this is the very tree."
Really it was, but, allowing his eyes to roam about, he caught a glimpse of another slender sapling, not quite so thick, which he bravely approached.
"This is better," he thought; "it is straighter."
He gripped the handle of the axe with which he had armed himself, and then turned his broad back to the wind so that the snow shouldn't blow into his eyes and spoil his aim. Next he lifted the weapon over his head, as though it weighed a couple of hundredweight, not swinging it too far back, because he found that his waistcoat began to tighten rather uncomfortably. His left foot was thrust forward in the most approved manner of woodsmen, and his teeth were set.
Down came the axe, but, catching a twig in its course, the blade was diverted somewhat. Instead of striking the tree and smashing the handle, as in the natural order of events should have been the case, he hit his foot.
Luckily, the axe was a new one, and, therefore, not over sharp. Also, a good deal of power had been taken out of the stroke by the twig, so Trailey only managed to cut through his boot, and half-sever his little toe.
Subsequently, Trailey was properly grateful for the axe's newness, but, at the moment, overlooking it, he launched a few descriptive words of a nature which he had never previously used, though, strangely enough, they seemed to come as natural to him as to the most fluent wood-cutter.