told me about you.'

"'Have you gathered in old man Van Zyl?' I said.

"'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 anyone 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, by 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 a sovereign on that from a