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ys; hovered round the table, and generally made it plain that he had something he wished to say, or that he supposed they had something to say he wished to hear.
"What are you dodging about there for, man?" the Captain asked irritably at last. "Is it anything you want?"
"Nothing, sorr," said the man, "only I was just wondering if you had heard annything of a Gineral with fifty thousand francs in his pocket, lying out there beyond the trench."
"Five thousand francs," corrected Riley gently.
"'Twas fifty thousand I heard, sorr," said the man eagerly; "but ye have heard, then, sorr?"
"What's this about a General?" demanded the Captain.
"Yes!" said Riley quickly. "What is it? We have heard nothing of the General."
"Ah!" said the messman, eyeing him thoughtfully, "I thought maybe ye had heard."
"We have heard nothing," said Riley. "What is it you are talking about?"
"About them fifty thousand francs, sorr," said the messman, cunningly, "or five thousand, was it?"
"What's this?" said the Captain, and the others making no attempt to answer his question, left the messman to tell a voluble tale of a German General ("though 'twas a Field-Marshal some said it was, and others went the length of Von Kluck himself") who had been killed some days before, and lay out in the open with five thousand, or fifty thousand, francs in his breeches pocket, a diamond-studded gold watch on his wrist, diamond rings on his fingers, and his breast covered with Iron Crosses and jeweled Orders.
That both Riley and Brock, as well as the Captain, professed their profound ignorance of the tale only served, as they well knew, to strengthen the Tearaways Rifles' belief in it, and after the man had gone they imparted their plan with huge delight and joyful anticipation to the Captain.
When they had finished tea and left the keep to return to their own posts, they were met by Sergeant Clancy.
"I just wanted to speak wid you a moment, sorr," he said. "I have been