He's happy with--with what you call his playthings."
"What are they but playthings?" asked Beaumaroy, tilting his glass to his
lips with a smile perhaps a little wry.
"Only I wish as you wouldn't talk about judges and juries," the Sergeant
complained.
"I really don't know whether it's a civil or a criminal matter, or both,
or neither," Beaumaroy admitted candidly. "But what we do know, Sergeant,
is that it provides us with excellent billets and rations. Moreover, a
thing that you certainly will not appreciate, it gratifies my taste for
the mysterious."
"I hope there's a bit more coming from it than that," said the Sergeant.
"That is, if we stick together faithful, sir."
"Oh, we shall! One thing puzzles me about you, Sergeant. I don't think
I've mentioned it before. Sometimes you speak almost like an educated
man; at others your speech is, well, illiterate."
"Well, sir, it's a sort of mixture of my mother; she was class, the
blighter who come after my father, and the Board School--"
"Of course! What they call the educational ladder! That explains it.
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