Oh Lord! how a figure of speech always wound you up in knots if you tried to use it to say anything definite!
He relighted his pipe, this time with a steady hand, and a cool eye; and turned to Trevelyan and Garibaldi again. He'd take that other side of himself out in books, he guessed.
He had now arrived at the crucial moment of the battle, and lifted his head and his heart in anticipation of the way Garibaldi met that moment. He read, "To experienced eyes the battle seemed lost. Bixio said to Garibaldi, 'General, I fear we ought to retreat.' Garibaldi looked up as though a serpent had stung him. '_Here we make Italy or die!_' he said."
"That's the talk!" cried Neale, to himself. The brave words resounded in the air about him, and drowned out the voices from the next room.
Paul was very much pleased that Mr. Welles agreed with him so perfectly about the hour and place for lunch. But then Mr. Welles was awfully nice about agreeing. He said, now, "Yes, I believe this would be the best place. Here by the pool, on that big rock, as you say. We'll be drier there. Yesterday's rain has made everything in the woods pretty wet. That's a good idea of yours, to build our fire on the rock, with water all around. The fire couldn't possibly spread." Paul looked proudly at the rain-soaked trees and wet soggy leaves which his forethought had saved from destruction and strode across the brook in his rubber boots, with the first installment of dry pine branches.
"Aren't you tired?" he said protectingly to his companion. "Whyn't you sit down over there and undo the lunch-basket? I'll make camp. Father showed me how to make a campfire with only one match."
"All right," said Mr. Welles. "I do feel a little leg-weary. I'm not so used to these mountain scrambles as you are."
"I'll clean the fish, too," said Paul; "maybe you don't like to. Elly can't abide it." He did not say that he did not like it very well himself, having always to get over the sick feeling it gave him.
"I never did it in my life," confessed Mr. Welles. "You see I always lived in towns till now."
Paul felt very sorry for Mr. Welles, and shook his head pityingly as he went off for more firewood.
When he had collected a lot, he began to lay the sticks. He did it just as Father had showed him, but it seemed lots harder to get them right. And it took a lot more than one match to get it started. He didn't have a bit of breath left in him, by the time he finally got it going. And my, weren't his hands black! But he felt very much set up, all the same, that he had done it. In his heart Paul knew that there was nothing anybody could do which he could not.