The squad started toward the middle of the lawn, where the turf had been slaughtered to make Young Brydell a holiday. The admiral, swelling with righteous wrath, remained on the steps, and Grubb, laughing in his sleeve, made a bee line for Young Brydell. Grubb walked as elegantly as any officer and was a fine, tall, handsome fellow to boot.
As the pick and shovel squad approached, Young Brydell, raising his miniature rifle, pointed it straight toward them and shrieked out an expression he had read in a book. “Up, men, and at ’em!”
But the men didn’t “up and at ’em.” They were too much engaged in watching the coming conflict between Grubb’s brawny arm and Young Brydell.
The rifle wasn’t much of an affair, but it had been known to kill a cat twenty feet away. Young Brydell, who had the face of a cherub and the alertness of a monkey, quickly brought the rifle to his shoulder and aimed it straight at the approaching Grubb.
“The admiral says,” shouted Grubb in his big baritone, “as how I’m to bring you immediately to him, and the Lord have mercy on your soul!”
Grubb, in saying this, reached forward to the rickety little flagstaff, meaning to save the flag. But Young Brydell construed it differently and thought Grubb meant to insult the national ensign.
“If you touch that flag, you’re a dead man!” shrieked he in his baby treble; and at the same moment, the toy rifle being at his shoulder, he called out to his demoralized command:—
“Ready—right—oblique—FIRE!”
And bang went the rifle in Grubb’s face!
Grubb put his hand to his ear, and when he brought it away, blood was plentiful on it. A queer look came into his eye. “By the jumping Moses, the monkey’s shot me,” said Grubb, reflectively and scarcely knowing what he was saying.