General Napoleon Smith put on his most field-marshalish expression, and summoned Sir Toady Lion to approach.

He tapped him on the shoulder and said in a grand voice, "I create you General of the Comm'sariat for distinguished conduct in the field.

From this time forth you can keep the key of the biscuit box, but I know just how many are in. So mind out!"

This was good, and Toady Lion was duly grateful; but he wished his good fortune put into a more concrete form.

"Can I have the biggest and nicerest saucer of the sc.r.a.pings of the preserving-pan to-night?"

Hugh John considered a moment. An impulse of generosity swept over him.

"Yes, you can," he said n.o.bly. Then a cross wave of caution caused him to add--"that is, if it isn't rasps!"

Now the children of the house of Windy Standard were permitted to clean out the boiling-pan in the fruit-preserving season with worn horn spoons, in order not to scratch the copper or crack the enamel.

And rasp was Hugh John's favourite.

"Huh," said Toady Lion, turning up a contemptuous nose. "Thank 'oo for nuffin! I like wasps just as much as 'oo, Hugh John Picton Smiff!"

"Don't answer me back, sir!"--Hugh John was using his father's words and manner.

"Sall if I like," said Toady Lion, beginning to whimper. "Sall go and tell Janet Sheepshanks, and she'll give me yots of wasps! Not sc.r.a.pin's neither, but weal-weal wasps--so there!"

"Toady Lion, I shall degrade you to the ranks. You are a little pig and a disgrace to the army."

"Don't care, I wants wasps--and I d'livered Donald," reiterated the Disgrace of the Army.

Hugh John once more felt the difficulty of arguing with Toady Lion. He was altogether too young to be logical. So he said, "Toady Lion, you little a.s.s, stop snivelling--and I'll give you a bone b.u.t.ton and the half of a knife."

"Let's see them," said Toady Lion, cautiously uncovering one eye by lifting up the edge of the covering palm. His commanding officer produced the articles of peace, and Toady Lion examined them carefully, still with one eye. They proved satisfactory.

"All yight!" said he, "I won't cry no more--but I wants three saucers full of the wasps too!"

CHAPTER XXII.

MUTINY IN THE CAMP.

Hugh John was holding his court under the weeping-elm, and was being visited in detail by his army. The Carters had come over, and, after a vigorous engagement and pursuit, he had even forgiven Sammy for his lack of hardihood in not resisting to the death at the great battle of the Black Sheds.

"But it hurts so confoundedly," argued Sammy; "if it didn't, I shouldn't mind getting killed a bit!"

"Look at me," said Hugh John; "I'm all over peels and I don't complain."

"Oh! I dare say--it's all very well for you," retorted Sammy, "you like to fight, and it was you that began the fuss, but I only fight because you'd jolly-well-hammer me if I didn't!"

"Course I would," agreed his officer, "don't you know that's what generals are for?"

"Well," concluded Sammy Carter, summing the matter up philosophically, "'tain't my castle anyway."

The review was over. In the safe quiet of the elm-tree shelter General Napoleon might have been seen taking his well-earned repose. He was surrounded by his entire following--except, of course, the two Generals of Division, who were engaged in sweeping out the stable-yard. But these were considered socially supernumerary at any rate, except (a somewhat important exception) when there was fighting to be done.

"I don't see that we've done so very much to make a brag about anyhow," began Sammy Carter.

General Smith dexterously caught him on the ear with a young turnip, which in company with several friends had wandered in of its own accord from the nearest field on the home farm.

"I should say _you_ didn't do much!" he sneered pointedly; "you hooked it as hard as you could after the first skirmish. Why, you haven't got a single sore place about you to show for it."

"Yes, I have!" retorted Sammy in high indignation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SAMMY CARTER MUTINOUS."]

"Well, let's see it then!" commanded his general in a kindlier tone.

"Can't--ladies present!" said Sammy succinctly, into the retreating rear-guard of whose division the triumphant enemy had charged with the pike s.n.a.t.c.hed from his sister's hands.

"All _my_ wounds are in front. _I_ fought and died with my face to the foe!" said Hugh John in his n.o.blest manner.

"And I d'livered Donald!" contributed Toady Lion complacently.

"Oh, _that_ ain't anything," sneered Sammy Carter, who was not in a good humour. His tone roused General Napoleon, who had the strong family feelings of all the Buonapartes.

"Shut up, Sammy, or I'll come and kick you. None of us did anything except Toady Lion. You ran away, and I got taken prisoner. Toady Lion is the only man among us!"

"I runned away too--at first," confessed the candid Toady Lion, who felt that he had so much real credit that he did not need to take a grain more than he deserved. "But I comed back quick--and I d'livered Donald out of prison, anyway--I did!"

Sammy Carter evidently had a sharp retort ready on the tip of his tongue, but he knew well the price he would have to pay for uttering it. Hugh John's eye was upon him, his right hand was closing on a bigger turnip--so Sammy forbore. But he kicked his feet more discontentedly than ever into the turf.

"Well," he said, changing the venue of the argument, "I don't think much of your old castle anyway. My father could have twice as good a castle if he liked----"

"Oh, 'course he could"--Hugh John's voice was distinctly ironical--"he might plant it on a peaty soil, and grow it from seed in two years; or perhaps he would like a cutting off ours!"

Mr. Davenant Carter was a distinguished agriculturist and florist.

"Don't you speak against my father!" cried Sammy Carter, glowering at General Napoleon in a way in which privates do not often look at their Commanders-in-Chief.

"Who's touching your father?" the latter said, a little more soothingly. "See here, Sammy, you've got your coat on wrong side out to-day. Go home and sleep on it. 'Tisn't my fault if you did run away, and got home before your sister--with a blue place on your back."

Sammy Carter flung out from under the shelter of the elm and went in search of Prissy, from whom in all his moods he was sure of comfort and understanding. He was a somewhat delicate boy, and generally speaking hated quarrelling as much as she did; but he had a clever tongue, which often brought him into trouble, and, like most other humorists, he did not at all relish a jest at his own expense.

As he went, he was pursued and stung by the brutally unrefined taunts of Hugh John.

"Yes, go on to Prissy; I think she has a spare doll. Go and play at 'house'! It's all you're good for!"

Thus encouraged by their general, the rest of the company--that is, Cissy and Sir Toady Lion, joined in singing a certain stirring and irritating refrain popular among the youth of Bordershire.