“Whyn’t you listen to what I say?” Cap shouted angrily. “I said ‘gerranals’! A gerranal’s a man among the Bri’sh with fourteen carts full of suits of clothes and hats, and four wagonloads of champagne and napkins, and two bottles of ink to write home to King George about what disgusts him. If we steal enough gerranals, Arnold wouldn’t worry about boats, would he? Because the Bri’sh wouldn’t have nobody left to carry nothing for, and they’d go home.”

He turned politely to Whitcomb. “You ’quainted with Gerranal Arnold? Greatest man ever was!”

Whitcomb stared gloomily into his empty cup. “Not personally. We all heard how he stole the communion cups out of the church up in Montreal.”

Cap shook his head as if an insect buzzed about his ear: then, focussing a hard eye on Whitcomb, made as if to struggle to his feet. Nason pushed him back again and looked carefully at Whitcomb.

“Lemme up!” Cap said thickly. “I’ll show him who stole any commulion cups! I’ll commulion cup him!”

Nason snapped his fingers in Cap’s face. “You’ll fight the British and no one else: no one else! Understand?” He turned to Doc Means. “What was put in that rum? There was something in it!”

“Thils,” Doc Means said, indistinctly. “ ’S cure for splerfrus men-kolly. ’S like all these urrer doctors’ cures—don’t cure nurrin’! Lotta splerfrus liars, ’s what doctors are!”

Nason reached for the kettle and spilled its contents on the ground. “That’s the place for it, whatever it is!”

To Whitcomb he said quietly: “Now here! That’s not the first time we’ve heard the story about Arnold stealing things from Montreal. Where’s it come from: that’s what we want to know!”

“You think it isn’t true?”

“We know it isn’t! What we don’t know is how any such stories came to sift all through the army! Who started them, and why? My God, it couldn’t have been any of his men in Montreal! They knew better, every damned one of ’em!”

“I guess there’s no call for profanity,” Whitcomb said coldly. “I’m only telling you what I heard.”

“Listen!” Nason said. “If we ever lose Arnold out of this army, you’ll find plenty of cause for profanity! You say you aim to be a scout; but when I ask you where you got your stories about Arnold, all you can do is tell me there’s no cause for profanity. A hell of a scout, you’d make. If somebody sent you to scout for Indians, you’d probably come back with a hoorah’s nest.”

Cap Huff hiccupped. “Took the words right out of my mouth, Stevie! Feller like that, he’ll prob’ly resign from the army if somebody tells him all the Bri’sh are bastards!”