“Didn’t want to.”
Timsy surveyed him with a pained air.
“Me daddy says uny-form had a right to be wore all the time,” he said. “He didn’t have no uvver clothes when he came home.”
Jim relented at the small, worried face.
“Tell you how it is, old man,” he said. “The old Germans laid us out; and we’re going to get better as quick as we can, to go and lick them.”
“Yes?” said Timsy, digging his heel into the earth, in bloodthirsty ecstasy. “That’s what me daddy’s after doing.”
“Of course he is. Well, we’ll get better quicker if we haven’t got to wear heavy uniforms all the time, don’t you see? So we asked leave; and a big general said we could put on other clothes. He was a very big general, so it’s all right, isn’t it?”
“Was he very big?”
“Enormous,” said Jim, gravely.
“If he was very ’normous, I ’spect it’s all right,” Timsy said, relinquishing his point with reluctance. “Only I likes you best in uny-forms.” His eye suddenly lit with new hope. “Do you think you’d wear ’em on Sunday, an’ you goin’ to church?”