' "Commandant Van Zyl," he says very stiff, "was most unfortunately wounded, but I am glad to say it's not serious. We hope he'll be able to dine with us to-night; and I feel sure," he says, "the General would be delighted to see you too, though he didn't expect," he says, "and no one else either, by Jove!" he says, and blushed like the British do when they're embarrassed.
'I saw him slide an Episcopalian Prayer-book up his sleeve, and when I looked over the edge of the stretcher there was half-a-dozen enlisted men—privates—had just quit digging and was standing to attention by their spades. I guess he was right on the General not expecting me to dinner; but it was all of a piece with their sloppy British way of doing business. Any God's quantity of fuss and flubdub to bury a man, and not an ounce of forehandedness in the whole outfit to find out whether he was rightly dead. And I am a Congregationalist anyway!
'Well, Sir, that was my introduction to the British Army. I'd write a book about it if any-one would believe me. This Captain Mankeltow, Royal British Artillery, turned the doctor on me (I could write another book about him) and fixed me up with a suit of his own clothes, and fed me canned beef and biscuits, and. give me a cigar—a Henry Clay and a whisky-and-sparklet. He was a white man.
' "Ye-es, bv Jove," he said, dragging out his words like a twist of molasses, "we've all admired your gun and the way you've worked it. Some of us betted you was a British deserter. I won
