nly shamming to-day, so that I
could think, and I have been thinking that this would do. You must wait
till we have whopped the French and gone back to England, and got our
new uniforms served out, and burnt all our rags. Then we must go and
see your uncle, and--"

"That'll do, Punch. I want to see to your wound now."

"What for? It's going on all right. Here, whatcher doing of? You
ain't going to cut up that other sleeve of your shirt, are you?"

"Yes; it is quite time that you had a fresh bandage."

"Ah, that's because you keep getting it into your head that I'm worse
and that I'm going to die; and it's all wrong, for I am going to be all
right. The Frenchies thought they'd done for me; but I won't die, out
of spite. I am going to get strong again, and as soon as the colonel
lets me carry a rifle I will let some of them have it, and--Oh, very
well; if you must do it, I suppose I must lie still; only get it over.
But--ya! I don't mean to die. What's the good of it, when there's so
much for us to do in walloping the French? But when we do get back to
the regiment you see how I will stick up for you, and what a lot I will
make the chaps think of you!"

"Will you keep your tongue quiet, Punch?"

"No, I sha'n't," said the boy with a mocking laugh. "There, you needn't
tie that so tight so as to make it hurt me, because I shall go on
talking all the same--worse. You always begin to shy and kick out like
one of those old mules when I begin talking to you like this. You hates
to hear the truth. I shall tell the chaps every blessed thing."

But, all the same, Punch lay perfectly still now until the dressing of
his wound was at an end; and then very faintly, almost in a whisper, he
said, "Yes; our chaps never knew what a good chap--"

"Ah! Asleep again!" said Pen, with a sigh of relief. "There must be
slight delirium, and I suppose I shall be doing no good by trying to
stop him. Poor fellow! He doesn't know how he hurts me when he goes
wandering on like this. I wish I could think out some way of getting a
change of food. Plenty of milk, plenty of fish. I have been as far as
I dared in every direction, but there isn't a trace of a cottage. I
don't want much--only one of those black-bread cakes now and then. Any
one would have thought that the people in a country like this would have
kept plenty of fowls. Perhaps they do where there are any cottages.
Ah, there's no shamming now. He's fast enough a