think," smiled Dick. "There is going to be a battle over on Long
Island sooner or later, and then you will get all the fighting you
want."

"Hurroo!" cried Tim Murphy, "shure an' thot is phwat we are afther
wantin', Oi dunno. It's all av us wull foight to the last gasp, sure
an' we wull."

"Yah, ve vill fighd lige eferyting," declared Fritz Schmockenburg. "Ve
are nod avraid uf der retgoads, und dot is so."

"How soon will the battle take place, Dick?" queried Ben Foster.

Dick shook his head.

"As to that I cannot say, Ben," he replied. "But it will come soon
enough, without doubt, for the British have twenty-five thousand
soldiers, while we have not more than eighteen thousand."

"That is pretty big odds," said Ben, with a shake of the head.

"So it is," agreed Dick. "But the patriots will give a good account of
themselves when the time comes, I feel certain."

"Yah, ve vill gif ein goot accound mit mysellufs," said Fritz, the
Dutch soldier.

"Just listen to thot, wull yez?" remarked Tim, scathingly. "Shure an'
there is agotism fur yez!"