The nearer man—­a stout corporal—­dropped his end of the measuring-tape.  The other wound it up slowly.

“We’ll have to lay the trench through here,” said the officer; and quoted, “‘I’m sorry for Mr Naboth—­I’m sorry to cause him pain;’ but you, corporal, must find him and tell him he’ll get compensation for disturbance.”  He pocketed his note-book, turned, and mounted the slope towards the encampment.  The soldier holding the spool on the far side of the dip finished winding the tape very leisurably; which gave it the movement and appearance of a long snake crawling back to him across Nicky-Nan’s potato-tops and over Nicky-Nan’s fence.  Then, shutting the spool with a click, he turned away and followed his officer.  The stout corporal, left alone, seated himself on a soft cushion of thyme, drew forth a pipe from his hip-pocket, and was in the act of lighting it when Nicky-Nan descended upon him.

“And ’oo may you be?” asked the stout corporal, turning about as he puffed.

“You—­you’ve no business here!” stammered Nicky wrathfully.  “The first sojer I catch trespassin’ on my piece o’ ground, I’ll have the law on him!”

“Hullo!  Be you the owner o’ this patch, then?”

“Yes, I be:  and I tell ‘ee you’ve no business messin’ around my property.”

The corporal removed the pipe from his mouth and rubbed its bowl softly against the side of his nose.  “So you said, to be sure.  I didn’ laugh at the moment, not bein’ a triggerish chap at a joke.  But it’ll come in time.  That’s why I joined the sappers.”

“Eh?”

“I takes a pleasure in redoocin’ things. . . .  Well, if you be the owner o’ this here patch, the pleasure is mootual, for you’ve saved me time an’ trouble over and above your speakin’ so humorous.  And what might your name be, makin’ so bold?”

“Nanjivell.”

“You don’t say so! . . .  Christian name?”

“Nicholas.”

“’Tis a fair co-incidence,” mused the corporal aloud.  “I knew a man once by the name of Nanjivell—­a fish-dealer; but he was called Daniel, an’ he’s dead, what’s more.  I remember him all the better, because once upon a time, in my young days, I made a joke upon him, so clever it surprised myself.  It began with my sendin’ in a bill ‘Account rendered’ that he’d already paid.  I started by tellin’ ’ee that I was young at the time.  ’Twas before I married my wife to look after the books, an’ I won’t say that I wasn’ a bit love-struck an’ careless.  Anyway, in went that dam bill; and he’d kep’ the receipt, which made him fair furious.  Mad as fire he was, an’ wrote me a letter about it.  Such a saucy letter!  ’Twas only last Christmas or thereabouts I found it in my desk an’ tore it up.  But I got even with him.  ’Dear sir,’—­I wrote back, ’your favour of the 5th instant received an’ unchristian spirit of the same duly noted.  On inquiry I find the 3 lb. of sausages to esteemed order was paid for on Lady-day:  which