“I should say, go home first, my boy, and ask your mother!”
“I be d---d if I be sich a molly-coddle as that, nuther; and I’ll prove un, Mr. Sergeant; gie me thic bright shillin’ and I be your man.”
“No,” said the sergeant, “think it over, and come to me in a month’s time, if your mother will let you. I don’t want men that will let their masters buy them off the next day.”
“No; an lookee here, Maister Sergeant; I bean’t to be bought off like thic, nuther. If I goes, I goes for good an’ all.”
“Well, then,” said the sergeant, shaking him by the hand, and pressing into it the bright shilling, “if you insist on joining, you shall not say I prevented you: my business is not to prevent men from entering Her Majesty’s service.”
Then the ribbons were brought out, and Joe asked if the young woman might sew them on as she had done Harry’s; and when she came in, Joe looked at her, and tried to put on a military bearing, in imitation of his great prototype; and actually went so far as to address her as “My dear,” for which liberty he almost expected a slap in the face. But Lucy only smiled graciously, and said: “Bravo, Mr. Wurzel! Bravo, sir; I’ve seen many a man inlisted, and sewed the Queen’s colours on for him, but never for a smarter or a finer fellow, there!” and she skipped from the room.
“Well done!” said several voices. And the sergeant said:
“What do you think of that, Mr. Wurzel? I’ll back she’s never said that to a soldier before.”
Joe turned his hat about and drew the ribbons through his fingers, as pleased as a child with a new toy, and as proud as if he had helped to win a great battle.
Here I awoke.