"Toady Lion, I shall degrade you to the ranks. You are a little pig and a disgrace to the army."
"Don't care, I wants wasps and I d'livered Donald," reiterated the Disgrace of the Army.
Hugh John once more felt the difficulty of arguing with Toady Lion. He was altogether too young to be logical. So he said, "Toady Lion, you little ass, stop snivelling and I'll give you a bone button and the half of a knife."
"Let's see them," said Toady Lion, cautiously uncovering one eye by lifting up the edge of the covering palm. His commanding officer produced the articles of peace, and Toady Lion examined them carefully, still with one eye. They proved satisfactory.
"All yight!" said he, "I won't cry no more but I wants three saucers full of the wasps too!"
CHAPTER XXII MUTINY IN THE CAMP
HUGH"But it hurts so confoundedly," argued Sammy; "if it didn't, I shouldn't mind getting killed a bit!"
"Look at me," said Hugh John; "I'm all over peels and I don't complain."
"Oh! I dare say it's all very well for you," retorted Sammy, "you like to fight, and it was you that began the fuss, but I only fight because you'd jolly-well-hammer me if I didn't!"
"Course I would," agreed his officer, "don't you know that's what generals are for?"
"Well," concluded Sammy Carter, summing
the matter up philosophically, "'tain't my castle anyway."
The review was over. In the safe quiet of the elm-tree shelter General Napoleon might have been seen taking his well-earned repose. He was surrounded by his entire following except, of course, the two Generals of Division, who were engaged in sweeping out the stable-yard. But these were considered socially supernumerary at any rate, except (a somewhat important exception) when there was fighting to be done.
"I don't see that we've done so very much to make a brag about anyhow," began Sammy Carter.
General Smith dexterously caught him on the ear with a young turnip, which in company with several friends had wandered in of its own accord from the nearest field on the home farm.
"I should say you didn't do much!" he sneered pointedly; "you hooked it as hard as you could after the first skirmish. Why, you haven't got a single sore place about you to show for it."
"Yes, I have!" retorted Sammy in high indignation.
"Well, let's see it then!" commanded his general in a kindlier tone.
"Can't ladies present!" said Sammy succinctly, into the retreating rear-guard of whose division the triumphant enemy had charged with the pike snatched from his sister's hands.
"All my wounds are in front. I fought and died with my face to the foe!" said Hugh John in his noblest manner.
"And I d'livered Donald!" contributed Toady Lion complacently.
"Oh, that ain't anything," sneered Sammy Carter, who was not in a good humour. His tone roused General Napoleon, who had the strong family feelings of all the Buonapartes.
"Shut up, Sammy, or I'll come and kick you. None of us did anything except Toady Lion. You ran away, and I got taken prisoner. Toady Lion is the only man among us!"
"I runned away too at first," confessed the candid Toady Lion, who felt that he had so much real credit that he did not need to take a grain more than he deserved. "But I comed back quick and I d'livered Donald out of prison, anyway I did!"
Sammy Carter evidently had a sharp retort ready on the tip of his tongue, but he knew well the price he would have to pay for uttering it. Hugh John's eye was upon him, his right hand was closing on a bigger turnip so Sammy forbore. But he kicked his feet more discontentedly than ever into the turf.
"Well," he said, changing the venue of the argument, "I don't think much of your old castle anyway. My father could have twice as good a castle if he liked "
"Oh, 'course he could" Hugh John's voice was distinctly ironical "he might plant it on a peaty soil, and grow it from seed in two years; or perhaps he would like a cutting off ours!"
Mr. Davenant Carter was a distinguished agriculturist and florist.
"Don't you speak against my father!" cried Sammy Carter, glowering at General Napoleon in a way in which privates do not often look at their Commanders-in-Chief.
"Who's touching your father?" the latter said, a little more soothingly. "See here, Sammy, you've got your coat on wrong side out to-day. Go home and sleep on it. 'Tisn't my fault if you did run away, and got home before your sister with a blue place on your back."
Sammy Carter flung out from under the shelter of the elm and went in search of Prissy, from whom in all his moods he was sure of comfort and understanding. He was a somewhat delicate boy, and generally speaking hated quarrelling as much as she did; but he had a clever tongue, which often brought him into trouble, and, like most other humorists, he did not at all relish a jest at his own expense.
As he went, he was pursued and stung by the brutally unrefined taunts of Hugh John.
"Yes, go on to Prissy; I think she has a spare doll. Go and play at 'house'! It's all you're good for!"