"You can't expect to go more than eight miles an hour," said the corporal, "even in poetry like that. It can't be done."
"But what happened?" asked Jimmieboy, who was quite interested to hear the rest of the poem.
"I'll have to tell you some other time, general," replied the soldier. "These tin warriors here haven't any manners. Some day, when you have time to spare, I'll tell you the rest of it, because I know you'll be glad to hear it."
"Yes, general," put in the corporal, with a laugh. "Some day when you have a year to spare get him to tell you the first twenty-seventh of the next ninety-sixth of it. It won't take him more than eleven months and thirty-two days to do it."
"Bah!" said the poetic soldier, mounting his horse and riding off with an angry flush on his cheek. "Some day, when I get promoted to the ranks, I'll get even with you."
"Who is he, anyhow?" asked Jimmieboy, as the soldier rode off.
"He's Major Blueface, and he has to look after the luggage," replied the corporal. "And as for that poem of his, Jimmieboy, I want to warn you. He has a printed copy of it that takes seven trunks to carry. He says it was written by High-private Tinsel, but that's all nonsense. He wrote it himself."
"Then I like it all the better," said Jimmieboy. "I always like what people I like write."
"There's no accounting for tastes," returned the corporal. "We don't any of us like the major. That's why we made him major. Looking after luggage is such awfully hard work, we didn't want to make any one else do it, and so we elected him."
"Why don't you like him?" asked Jimmieboy. "He seems to me to be a very nice soldier."