The Surprising Adventures of Sir Toady Lion with Those of General Napoleon Smith: An Improving History for Old Boys, Young Boys, Good Boys, Bad Boys, Big Boys, Little Boys, Cow Boys, and Tom-BoysCrockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)
General
The Surprising Adventures of Sir Toady Lion with Those of General Napoleon Smith: An Improving History for Old Boys, Young Boys, Good Boys, Bad Boys, Big Boys, Little Boys, Cow Boys, and Tom-Boys
Crockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)
Adventure stories; Battles -- Juvenile fiction; Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Castles -- Juvenile fiction; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Fantasy literature; Friendship -- Juvenile fiction; Love stories; Siblings -- Juvenile fiction; Soldiers -- Juvenile fiction; Wit and humor, Juvenile; Youth --
It is small wonder that Mr. Picton Smith was full of anger. His castle
had been invaded and desecrated, his authority as proprietor defied,
his children insulted and abused. As a magistrate he felt bound to
take notice both of the outrage and of the theft of his property. As a
father he could not easily forget the plight in which his three
children had appeared before him.
But in his schemes of vengeance he reckoned without that distinguished
military officer, General-Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith. For this
soldier had been promoted on his bed of sickness. He had read
somewhere that in his profession (as in most others) success quite
often bred envy and neglect, but that to the unsuccessful, promotion
and honour were sometimes awarded as a sort of consolation
sweepstakes. So, having been entirely routed and plundered by the
enemy, it came to Hugh John in the watches of the night--when, as he
put it, "his head was hurting like fun" that it was time for him to
take the final step in his own advancement.
So on the next morning he announced the change in his name and style
to his army as it filed in to visit him. The army was on the whole
quite agreeable.
"But I'm afraid I shall never remember all that, Mr.
General-Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith!" said Priscilla.
"Well, you'd better!" returned the wounded hero, as truculently as he
could for the bandages and the sticking-plaster, in which he was
swathed after the fashion of an Egyptian mummy partially unwrapped.
"What a funny smell!" piped Toady Lion. "Do field-marshals _all_ smell
like that?"
"Get out, silly!" retorted the wounded officer. "Don't you know that's
the stuff they rub on the wounded when they have fought bravely?
That's arnicay!"
"And what do they yub on them when they don't fight bravely?"
persisted Toady Lion, who had had enough of fighting, and who in his
heart was resolved that the next time he would "yun away" as hard as
he could, a state of mind not unusual after the _zip-zip_ of bullets
is heard for the first time.
"First of all they catch them and kick them for being cowards. Then
they shoot at them till they are dead; and may the Lord have mercy on
their souls! Amen!" said General Smith, mixing things for the
information and encouragement of Sir Toady Lion.
Presently the children were called out to go and play, and the wounded
hero was left alone. His head ached so that he could not read. Indeed,
in any case he could not, for the room was darkened with the intention
of shielding his damaged eyes from the light. General Napoleon could
only watch the flies buzzing round and round, and wish in vain that he
had a fly-flapper at the end of a pole in order to "plop" them, as he
used to do all over the house in the happy days before Janet
Sheepshanks discovered what made the walls and windows so horrid with
dead and dying insects.
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