"
"But their officers wear the same uniform, Paddy," Weldon objected.
"Who are their betters?"
"Myself, little Canuck, and yourself, too," Paddy answered calmly.
"The maple and the shamrock, severally and together, can knock the
spots out of all the thistles that's growing."
"Until it comes to a fight," Carew suggested, from Paddy's other
side. "The Highlanders have made their record, this time."
But Paddy shook his head. "Wait then till the end of the chapter,"
he predicted. "My turn hasn't come yet. Belike I'll be the hero of
them all. I was minding my pots and my kettles, while the Black
Watch was slinging lead up on the road into Kimberley. But, faith,
if I was one of them, with the choice before me between a glorious
death and the having to live in the sound of the bagpipes, I'd mount
a Red Cross and take a white flag in my hand and sally forth to be
seen and shot by the Boers."
"You don't like the bagpipes, Paddy?"
Paddy's reply was sententious.
"Did you ever hear a pig soliloquizing to himself, just as he
crossed the tracks between the wheels of an express train? Well
then!"
"Meanwhile," Carew observed thoughtfully; "I wonder why we are out
on this trek.
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