"That's a bet," said the Boy firmly. "So long as I know it's going to be all right, I'll be awfully good. What are you going to do with me on leave? I can't dig trenches for peas now—at least, not properly."
"No; but if you took a little more interest in the subject, you'd know that at this time of year you can pick them. Now, here's your house, and you're going in to see your mother, and I'm going home; and you're not to laugh at her if she cries, and—pay attention, Boy—there's no need for you to wear that glove on your hand; she isn't a baby any more than I am."
AN URGENT COURTSHIP.
[Written with a lot of assistance from a partner.]
The solitary figure in the R.N. Barracks smoking-room rose, stretched himself, and lounged across to a table to change his evening paper for a later edition.
"Hullo! old sportsman. Where's everybody?"
The "sportsman"—a precise-looking surgeon who wore a wound-stripe on his cuff—looked round from the litter of newspapers he had been turning over.
"Why, lumme! if it ain't James the Giant-Killer. Here, waiter! Hi! Two sherry—quick! What the deuce brings you here, James?"