"You're the funny man of the troupe, I suppose?
Comic Irishman and that sort of thing, hey ?" "I assure you, sir--" "And I assure _you_, sir, that if you come the funny dog over me, I'll have you up to the gratings in two shakes of a duck's tail, and tickle your funny ribs with three dozen of the best.

Understand ?" The Captain paused, trembling with rage.

"Understand, hey, you '-- ' little barnstorming son of a '-- '?
Made a mistake, have I?
Cut your capers at my expense, would you, you little baldheaded runt?
By '-- ' if you pull another face at me, sir, you shall caper off the yardarm, sir; on a string, sir; high as Haman, sir! I hope, sir," wound up Captain Crang, recovering his calm, "that on this point, at any rate, I have left no room for misunderstanding." It will excite no wonder that Mr.Sturge found the Major somewhat irresponsive to his own jubilant mood.
"I should soon get used to this life," he repeated.

"There's a spirit in it--a breeziness, I may call it--which is positively infectious.

You don't find it so ?" "I do not," the Major confessed.
Mr.Sturge pointed his toe and seemed about to execute the first steps of a hornpipe, but checked himself.
"Rough tongue, the Captain's ?" he queried.
The Major swallowed a lump in his throat but did not answer.
"Hasty temper.