'We're British, and the man over there told us you are.

And Maidstone's in danger, and the enemy not a mile off, and you stand SMOKING.' Noel was standing crying, himself, or something very like it.
'It's quite true,' Alice said.
The Colonel said, 'Fiddle-de-dee.' But the Cocked-Hatted Man said, 'What was the enemy like ?' We told him exactly.

And even the Colonel then owned there might be something in it.
'Can you show me the place where they are on the map ?' he asked.
'Not on the map, we can't,' said Dicky--'at least, I don't think so, but on the ground we could.

We could take you there in a quarter of an hour.' The Cocked-Hatted One looked at the Colonel, who returned his scrutiny, then he shrugged his shoulders.
'Well, we've got to do something,' he said, as if to himself.

'Lead on, Macduff.' The Colonel roused his soldiery from their stupor of pipes by words of command which the present author is sorry he can't remember.
Then he bade us boys lead the way.