"Why shouldn't I do as well with a farm as another?"
"Why not turn shoemaker? Because you have not learned the business. Farmer, indeed! You'd never get the farm, and if you did, you would not keep it for three years. You've been in the army too long to be fit for anything else, Walter."
Captain Marrable looked black and angry at being so counselled; but he believed what was said to him, and had no answer to make to it.
"You must stick to the army," continued the old man; "and if you'll take my advice, you'll do so without the impediment of a wife."
"That's quite out of the question."
"Why is it out of the question?"
"How can you ask me, Uncle John? Would you have me go back from an engagement after I have made it?"
"I would have you go back from anything that was silly."
"And tell a girl, after I have asked her to be my wife, that I don't want to have anything more to do with her?"
"I should not tell her that; but I should make her understand, both for her own sake and for mine, that we had been too fast, and that the sooner we gave up our folly the better for both of us. You can't marry her, that's the truth of it."