"Did ye ever know a Dutch boss av any kind clane-shaved an' not hairy-faced?" was Kildare's just retort, "or see a crowd av Doppers gathered together that the blue smoke av the Blessed Creature was not curlin' out av their mouths an' ears an' noses, an' Old Square Face or Van der Hump makin' the rounds?"
"You thought the blokes on the metals was a workin' gang of our chaps at the fust go off," complained the guard, "an' you opened the whistle to warn 'em!"
"He did that for sure," put in the Cardiff stoker. "But he was tipping me the wink while he did it, so he was; as much as to say he knew they were Boers all the time."
"Would they have stopped where they was, well widin range, av I had let on I knew they was a parcel av unwashed Dutchmen?" demanded Kildare hotly. "Would they have hung on as I pushed her towards thim—would they have stopped to watch me uncouplin' the two thrucks, smilin' wid simple interest in their haythen faces, av they had not taken me for a suckin' lamb in oily overalls that took themselves for sheep av the same fold?"
"They got a bit suspicious when we steamed orf," said the guard; "more than a bit suspicious, they did."
"They took the thrucks for the Armoured Thrain," recounted Kildare, with a radiant smile illuminating a countenance of surpassing griminess, "an' they rode to widin range, an' got off their hairies, an' dhropped in a volley just to insinse them they took to be squattin' down inside them insijious divizes, into what they would be gettin' if they put up the heads av them." He mopped his brimming eyes with a handful of cotton waste, not innocent of lubricating fluid. "Tower av Ivory! 'twas grand to see the contimpt av thim when the cowards widin did not reply. 'Donder!' says the gaffer in the tay-thray hat and the beard like the grandfather av all the billygoats. 'Is this,' he says, 'the British pluck they talk about? Show thim verdant English a Dutchman behind a geweer,' he says, an' that's what they call a gun in their dirty lingo—'an' they lie down wid all four legs in the air like a puppy that sees the whip. Plug thim again, my sons,' says he, 'an' wid the blessin' av Heaven, we'll stiffen the lot!'"
"You could never hear him, so you could not, not at all that distance," the Cardiff stoker objected.
"Could I not see him, ye blind harper, swearin' in dumb show, an' urgin' thim to shoot sthraight for the honour av the Republics an' give the rooi batchers Jimmy O! Ga-lant-ly they respondid, battherin' the sides av the mysterious locomotive containin' the bloody an' rapacious soldiery av threacherous England wid nickel-plated Mauser bullets, ontil she hiccoughs indacintly, an' wid a bellow to bate St. Fin Barr's bull, kicks herself to pieces!"
"She did so, surely," affirmed the Cardiff stoker. "Surely she did so."
"Tell the Colonel 'ow the engine jumped right off the metals," advised the guard.