that don’t bring you round, George,” says she, “just throw your eye across here at your present now and then, and the two together must do it.”
“You ought to do it of yourself,” George answers; “I know that very well, Mrs. Bagnet. I’ll tell you how, one way and another, the blues have got to be too many for me. Here was this poor lad. ’Twas dull work to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help him.”
“What do you mean, George? You did help him. You took him under your roof.”
“I helped him so far, but that’s little. I mean, Mrs. Bagnet, there he was, dying without ever having been taught much more than to know his right hand from his left. And he was too far gone to be helped out of that.”
“Ah, poor creetur!” says Mrs. Bagnet.
“Then,” says the trooper, not yet lighting his pipe, and passing his heavy hand over his hair, “that brought up Gridley in a man’s mind. His was a bad case too, in a different way. Then the two got mixed up in a man’s mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do with both. And to think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel, standing up on end in his corner, hard, indifferent, taking everything so evenly—it made flesh and blood tingle, I do assure you.”
“My advice to you,” returns Mrs. Bagnet, “is to light your pipe and tingle that way. It’s wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for the health altogether.”
“You’re right,” says the trooper, “and I’ll do it.”
So he does it, though still with an indignant gravity that impresses the young Bagnets, and even causes Mr. Bagnet to defer the ceremony of