He dismissed the old man, dressed and went downstairs. The Dean had breakfasted at seven. Peggy and Oliver were not yet down for the nine o’clock meal. Doggie strolled about the garden and sauntered round to the stable-yard. There he encountered Chipmunk in his shirt-sleeves, sitting on a packing case and polishing Oliver’s leggings. He raised an ugly, clean-shaven mug and scowled beneath his bushy eyebrows at the new-comer.
“Morning, mate!” said Doggie pleasantly.
“Morning,” said Chipmunk, resuming his work.
Doggie turned over a stable bucket and sat down on it and lit a cigarette.
“Glad to be back?”
Chipmunk poised the cloth on which he had poured some brown dressing. “Not if I has to be worried with private soljers,” he replied. “I came ’ere to get away from ’em.”
“What’s wrong with private soldiers? They’re good enough for you, aren’t they?” asked Doggie with a laugh.
“Naow,” snarled Chipmunk. “Especially when they ought to be orficers. Go to ’ell!”
Doggie, who had suffered much in the army, but had never before been taunted with being a dilettante gentleman private, still less been consigned to hell on that account, leapt to his feet shaken by one of his rare sudden gusts of anger.
“If you don’t say I’m as good a private soldier as any in your rotten, mangy regiment, I’ll knock your blinking head off!”