"Do yer sleep well, mate?" he enquired, conversationally.
"Crikey! sleep is it? There ain't no blinkin' sleep in this 'ere ruddy camp."
"Wot's up?" enquired Bindle.
"Up!" was the lugubrious response. "Awake all last night, I was."
"Wot was you doin'?" queried Bindle with interest.
"Scratchin'!" was the savage retort.
"Scratchin'! Who was you scratchin'?"
"Who was I scratchin'? Who the 'ell should I be scratchin' but myself?" he demanded, his apathy momentarily falling from him. "I'd like to know where they got that blinkin' straw from wot they give us to lie on. I done a bit o' scratchin' in the trenches; but last night I 'adn't enough fingers, damn 'em."
Bindle whistled.
"Then," continued the man with gloomy gusto, "there's them ruddy chickens in the mornin', a-crowin' their guts out. Not a wink o' sleep after three for anybody," he added, with all the hatred of the cockney for farmyard sounds. "Oh! it's an 'oliday, all right," he added with scathing sarcasm, "only it ain't ours."