“That is the right spirit, my boy, and I shall call upon you whenever I have work that I think you can do better than an older man could do it.”
Then he dismissed Dick, who saluted and withdrew, going to his quarters.
He found Tom there, engaged in telling the story of his and Dick's adventures over on Long Island, and Ben and the other soldiers were listening eagerly, their eyes shining. They greeted Dick joyously.
“Say, I wish I had been with you two fellows, old man,” said Ben Foster. “You have got the bulge on the rest of us, and that isn't fair. You have already encountered the redcoats and had adventures with them, while the rest of us have had to stay cooped up here in the city.” Ben pretended to be vexed with Dick and Tom, but it was only pretense.
“You boys will get all the adventure you want, one of these days, I think,” smiled Dick. “There is going to be a battle over on Long Island sooner or later, and then you will get all the fighting you want.”
“Hurroo!” cried Tim Murphy, “shure an' thot is phwat we are afther wantin', Oi dunno. It's all av us wull foight to the last gasp, sure an' we wull.”
“Yah, ve vill fighd lige eferyting,” declared Fritz Schmockenburg. “Ve are nod avraid uf der retgoads, und dot is so.”
“How soon will the battle take place, Dick?” queried Ben Foster.
Dick shook his head.
“As to that I cannot say, Ben,” he replied. “But it will come soon enough, without doubt, for the British have twenty-five thousand soldiers, while we have not more than eighteen thousand.”