“Oh,” said Doggie. Then after a pause he added, “He’s just the sort of chap for a soldier, isn’t he?”
The next day Oliver’s anxiety as to Chipmunk was relieved by the appearance of the man himself, incredibly dirty and dusty and thirsty. Having found no trace of his wife, and having been robbed of the money he carried about him, he had tramped to Durdlebury, where he reported himself to his master as if nothing out of the way had happened.
“You silly blighter,” said Oliver. “Suppose I had let you go with your other sixty pounds, you would have been pretty well in the soup, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, Cap’en,” said Chipmunk.
“And you’re not going on any blethering idiot wild-goose chases after wives and such-like truck again, are you?”
“No, Cap’en,” said Chipmunk.
This was in the stable-yard, after Chipmunk had shaken some of the dust out of his hair and clothes and had eaten and drunk voraciously. He was now sitting on an upturned bucket and smoking his clay pipe with an air of solid content. Oliver, lean and supple, his hands in his pockets, looked humorously down upon him.
“And you’ve got to stick to me for the future, like a roseate leech.”
“Yes, Cap’en.”
“You’re going to ride a horse.”