"Well, as I was saying, Mr. Lumsden and me was just a-going to shove down the wall what was intermediate between us and the mounseers when—"
"Hold hard a bit, sargint," put in Bates; "ain't that there little chap on the boat there rather like the gipsy brat what Mr. Lumsden took up with?"
"Corp'ril Bates, if you keep on interrupting your superior orficer I shall rejuce you. Gipsy brats is neither here nor there; what the young 'uns want to know is how me and Mr. Lumsden licked the French at Corunna."
"That's him; that's Pepito!" cried Bates, heedless of Wilkes' increasing irritation. "P'r'aps he'll be able to tell us what's become of his master."
Bates sheered off, and Wilkes resumed his much-interrupted narrative. He was in the middle of a very vivid description of how Mr. Lumsden and himself fought eight Frenchmen at the wall, when he became aware of a commotion at some distance along the quay. Chagrined to find the attention of his audience wandering, he stood up, exclaiming:
"What are the rampaging Vamooses at now?—hang them!"
But he saw, not Portuguese, but a number of men in the well-known green of the 95th Rifles, marching up the street, cheering vigorously. Among them, in the middle of the causeway, strode two young Spaniards, the one slim and lissom, the other broad and bulky. Both walked buoyantly, and seemed in high good-humour. Behind them, over their heads, could be seen the antic figure of Pepito, perched on Bates's shoulders, and looking as proud as a peacock. Wilkes stared at the procession as it approached, wondering to see two Spaniards with the unprecedented escort of British Riflemen. All at once he drew himself up, struck his feet together, and, just as the head of the procession reached him, brought his hand to his eyebrow in the stiff military salute. His face was a study in its successive expressions of perplexity, vexation, and pleasure.
The recruits were taken too much aback to be able to make their salute before the procession had passed.
"Who's that ragged Don you're saluting, sargint?" asked one of them.
"Who's that, you dough-faced clod-hopping chaw-bacon, you!" cried Wilkes, seizing the opportunity of venting his feelings. "Why, that's Lieutenant Jack Lumsden, him what helped me to lick the mounseers at Corunna. And I'll make it warm for Charley Bates," he muttered, "stealing a march on me like that. Why didn't I perpetrate the disguise? That's what I want to know."