After each few sentences he paused, to give himself time to produce something between a creak and a snore--an abortive attempt to get at a mucus that was plainly out of reach.
The diggers were beside themselves with mirth.
"'E's forgot 'is 'ankey!" "'Ere, boys, look slippy!--a 'ankey for ol' sausage!" But the German was not sensitive to ridicule.

He had something to say, and he was there to say it.

Fixing his fish-like eyes on a spot high up the tent wall, he kept them pinned to it, while he mouthed out blood-and-thunder invectives.

He was, it seemed, a red-hot revolutionist; a fierce denouncer of British rule.

He declared the British monarchy to be an effete institution; the fetish of British freedom to have been "exbloded" long ago.