"They don't know butt from muzzle."
"Possibly your cub is not such a cub after all. The English schoolboy nowadays has a cadet's training, I believe. Perhaps this youngster might drive a little military gumption even into the nigger's wooden head."
"Really, Major," cried Reinecke impatiently, "you speak as though--as though you think the English good for something, whereas we all know they can't possibly be. They've no efficiency; they're slack; they----"
"Yes, we've been told so," the major interposed drily. "It's just possible that we're mistaken--believe what we want to believe. And I've seen this boy, remember."
Reinecke got up and stalked about the room.
"It is absurd; it is scandalous," he cried. "A young whippersnapper kidnaps our men, defies us, lowers the prestige of the German name, makes us a laughing-stock----"
"Stay, stay, Captain. You are a little intemperate. A friendly word of warning: don't talk like that outside this room. It's unwise, unsafe, if you value your commission. I go so far as to say you are unreasonable. You allow personal feeling to warp your judgment. Your dislike of this young Englishman, however natural in the circumstances--" Reinecke flashed a keen look at the speaker--"must not blind you to the facts of the situation. As I have explained, we have been hard pressed on the frontier. The Englishman, it appears, has an extraordinarily strong position----"
"Where is he?"
"They talk of a nullah----"
"I know it. It was in my company he learnt of it."