"Who tied you up?" he asked.
"A couple of fellows," said Porky, stamping the feeling into his feet and ankles. "Couldn't see who they were."
"You can see one of them any time now, I'll bet," said the Sergeant. "Your brother here did for him in the neatest way you ever saw." He repeated the meeting on Salina Street, while Porky walked up and down the drive between the Sergeant and his brother.
"Yes, sir, he keeled right over and gosh, how he did flop around! It was a fit all right. I bet he died, too, because he went limp all at once. He acted like he'd seen a ghost. He yelled, 'What did you give him?' to the other fellow. What did he call him?" he asked Beany. "I heard him call some name."
Porky's elbow went sharply into Beany's ribs.
"Didn't catch it," said he, obeying the warning for silence.
CHAPTER VI
ORDERS FROM THE COLONEL
Over in the Hospital, the dimply nurse laid compresses on the swollen ankle of Captain DuChassis. She found her patient wakeful, and worn with pain. The leg was badly wrenched, it seemed. The dimply nurse talked pleasantly with her distinguished guest, and to amuse him told him a small joke. It was an amusing little joke to her. A boy had dropped in during the afternoon, and had asked for the Captain. He seemed most anxious to know just how he was getting, along; and when she had told him that he could not leave the Hospital for another day, the boy had said, "I wish I could help take care of the Captain. Say, nurse, what have you done with his boots?"
"My boots?" said the Captain blankly. "My boots?"