Page:The Steel Flea.djvu/92

 Englishmen great amazement. He was not so much absorbed in their manner of making new guns as in the condition of the old ones. He kept going about and uttering praises, and saying: "And this, also, we can do." But when he came across an old gun, he would thrust his finger into the barrel, draw it along the walls, and sigh: "This," says he, "is incomparably finer than ours."

The Englishmen could by no means divine what it was that the left-handed man was commenting upon, but he inquired: "Cannot I find out whether our Generals ever beheld this or not?"

They say to him: "Some of them have been over here, and they must have seen it."

"But how were they," says he, "with gloves or without gloves?"

"Your Generals," say they, "are always in full dress; they always go about