ch longer I must try another
dodge, especially if we are going on the march, for I don't want to go
tramping along with half a hundredweight of stones in my pocket."

"You're a rum fellow, Punch," said Pen, smiling.

"That's what my mother used to say; and I am glad of it. It does a
fellow good to see you burst out laughing. Why, I haven't seen you grin
like that not since the day when I went down with the bullet in my back.
Here, I know what I'll do. I'll chuck all these stones, and make a
scratch for every day on the stock of my musket. 'Tain't as if it was a
Bri'sh rifle and the sergeant coming round and giving you hooroar for
not keeping your arms in order. That would be a good way, wouldn't it,
because the musket-stock wouldn't weigh any heavier when you had done
than when you had begun."

"Well, are you satisfied now, Punch, that he isn't talking about you?"

"Well, you say he ain't, and that's enough; but I want to know, all the
same, why that there Spanish King don't come."

"So does he. You saw how earnest he was yesterday when he came and
talked to me, after seeing to my leg, and telling me that he shouldn't
do any more to it."

"Telled you that, did he? I am glad. And that means it's nearly well."

"It means it's so far well that I am to exercise it all I can."

"Glad of it. But you ought to have telled me. That is good news. But
how are you going to exercise it if we are under orders not to go
outside this place for fear of the people seeing us and splitting upon
the father?"

"Yes, that is awkward, Punch."

"Awkward! I call it more than awkward, for we did nearly get the poor
old chap into a bad scrape that first night. Tell you what, though.
You ask Mr Contrabando to come some night and show us the way."

"Show us the way where?"

"Anywhere. Up into the passes, as he calls them, right up in the
mountains, so that we shall know which way to go when we want to join
the Bri'sh army."

"It would be hardly fair to him, Punch," said Pen.

"Never mind that. It would be fair to us, and it would be exercising
your leg. Pretty muddle we should be in when the order comes to march
and your poor old leg won't go."

"Ah, well, we shall see, Punch," said Pen.

"Ah, I would; and soon. It strikes me sometimes that he's getting
rather tired of his job, him and all his chaps too. I've watched them
when they come here of an evening to ask questions of the father and lay
their heads togeth