“‘I hate to disappoint you,’ says Captain Mankeltow, ‘because I know you feel as an inventor.’ I wasn’t feeling like an inventor just then. I felt friendly, but the British haven’t more tact than you can pick up with a knife out of a plate of soup.
“‘The honest truth,’ he says, ‘is that you’ve wounded about ten of us one way and another, killed two battery horses and four mules, and—oh, yes,’ he said, ‘you’ve bagged five Kaffirs. But, buck up,’ he said, ‘we’ve all had mighty close calls’—shaves, he called ’em, I remember. ‘Look at my pants.’
“They was repaired right across the seat with Minneapolis flour-bagging. I could see the stencil.
“‘I ain’t bluffing,’ he says. ‘Get the hospital returns, Doc.’
“The doctor gets ’em and reads ’em out under the proper dates. That doctor alone was worth the price of admission.
“I was right pleased right through that I hadn’t killed any of these cheerful kids; but none the less I couldn’t help thinking that a few more Kaffirs would have served me just as well for advertising purposes as white men. No, sir. Anywhichway you regard the proposition, twenty-one casualties after months of close friendship like ours was—paltry.
“They gave me taffy about the gun—the British use taffy where we use sugar. It’s cheaper, and gets there just the same. They sat around and proved to me that my gun was too good, too uniform—shot as close as a Mannlicher rifle.
“Says one kid chewing a bit of grass: ‘I counted eight of your shells, Sir, burst in a radius of ten feet. All of ’em would have gone through one waggon-tilt. It was beautiful,’ he says. ‘It was too good.’
“I shouldn’t wonder if the boys were right. My Laughtite is too mathematically uniform in propelling power. Yes; she was too good for this refractory fool of a country. The training gear was broke, too, and we had to swivel her around by the trail. But I’ll build my next Zigler fifteen hundred pounds heavier. Might work in a gasoline motor under the axles. I must think that up.
“‘Well, gentlemen,’ I said, ‘I’d hate to have been the death of any of you; and if a prisoner can deed away his property, I’d love to present the Captain here with what he’s seen fit to leave of my Zigler.’