Part 50 (2/2)
”Cracker--lie? I declare he did!”
”I don't believe you.”
”Very well!” said West stiffly.
”No; it is not very well! Come now, he didn't say anything about _us_.
He said you. Confess: the truth!”
West began to hesitate.
”He--well--perhaps not exactly in the words I said.”
”That will do, sir!” cried Ingleborough. ”You are convicted of cramming--of making up a fict.i.tious account of the interview. He did not allude to me.”
”But he meant to include you, of course!”
”No, he did not, Noll; he meant you.”
”I say he meant both of us. If he did not, I shan't go!”
”What!”
”I shall not go a step out of the way without my comrade!”
”What!” cried Ingleborough, holding out his hand. ”Well, come, I like that, lad, if you mean it.”
”If I mean it, Ingle!” said West reproachfully.
”All right, old chap! You always were a trump! There, _we'll_ take the despatch back! And now no more b.u.t.ter! We're very brave fellows, of course, and there's an end of it. I say, I wonder how Anson is getting on.”
”The miserable renegade!” cried West. ”I should like to see the scoundrel punished!”
”Well, have patience!” said Ingleborough, laughing. ”It's a very laudable desire, which I live in hopes of seeing gratified. But don't you think we might as well go to sleep and make up for all we have gone through?”
”Yes, but who is to sleep with all this terrible bombarding going on?”
”I for one!” said Ingleborough. ”I'm getting quite used to it! But I say, I can see a better way of making a fortune than keeping in the diamond business.”
”What is it?” said West carelessly. He was listening to the roar of the enemy's guns and the crash of sh.e.l.ls, for the Boers were keeping up their bombardment right into the night.
”I mean to go into the gunpowder trade, and--oh dear, how--”
West waited for the words that should have followed a long-drawn yawn, but none came, for the simple reason that Ingleborough was fast asleep.
Ten minutes later, in the face of his suggestions to the contrary, and in spite of the steady regular discharge of artillery, sending huge sh.e.l.ls into the place, West was just as fast asleep, and dreaming of Anson sitting gibbering at him as he played the part of a monkey filling his cheeks with nuts till the pouches were bulged out as if he were suffering from a very bad attack of mumps. The odd part of it was that when he took out and tried to crack one of the nuts in his teeth he could not, from the simple fact that they were diamonds.
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