again."

"Well then, beautiful sparkling water."

"Who wants sparkling water? 'Tain't like English. It's so thin and
cold."

"Come, come; you must own that you are mending fast, Punch."

"Who wants to be mended," snarled the poor fellow, "and go through life
like my old woman's cracked chayney plate with the rivet in it! I was a
strong lad once, and could beat any drummer in the regiment in a race,
while now I ought to be in horspital."

"No, you ought not. I'll tell you what you want, Punch."

"Oh, I know."

"No, you don't. You want to get just a little stronger, so as you can
walk ten miles in a day."

"Ten miles! Why, I used to do twenty easy."

"So you will again, lad; but I mean in a night, for we shall have to lie
up all day and march all night so as to keep clear of the enemy."

"Then you mean for us to try and get out of this wretched hole?"

"I mean for us to go on tramp as soon as you are quite strong enough;
and then you will think it's a beautiful valley. Why, Punch, I have
crept about here of a night while you have been asleep, so that I have
got to know the place by heart, and I should like to have the chance of
leading our fellows into places I know where they could hold it against
ten times or twenty times their number of Frenchmen who might try to
drive them out."

"You have got to know that?" said Punch with a show of animation that
had grown strange to the poor fellow.

"Yes," cried Pen triumphantly.

"Well, then, all I have got to say is you waren't playing fair."

"Of course it wasn't. Seeing you were so weak you couldn't walk."

"There now, you are laughing at a fellow; but you don't play fair."

"Don't I? In what way?"

"Why, you promised while I have been so bad that you would read to me a
bit."

"And I couldn't, Punch, because we have got nothing to read."

"And then you promised that you would tell me how it was you come to
take the king's shilling."

"Well, yes, I did; but you don't want to know that."

"Yes, I do. I have been wanting to know ever since."

"Why, boy?"

"Because it seems so queer that a lad like you should join the ranks."

"Why queer? You are too young yet, but you will be in the ranks some
day as a full private."

"Yes, some day; but then, you see, my father was a soldier. Yours
warn't, was he?"

"No-o," said Pen, frowning and looking straight away before him out of
the hut-door.

"Well, then, why don't you speak out?"

"Beca