"Cursing and swearing!" cried the Colonel—"a thing I never do now.
Cursing and swearing, indeed! You be ——!"
"There you go," said old John. "Come, Colonel, be a father. What has the poor boy done?"
"He has deserted—a thing I have seen a fellow shot for, and he has left me a prey to parental anxieties."
"And so he has me, for that matter. But I forgive him. Anyway, I should like to hear his story before I condemn him. Why, he's only nineteen and four months, come Martinmas. Besides, how do we know?—he may have had some very good reason for going."
"His age makes that probable, doesn't it?"
"I dare say it was after some girl, sir."
"Call that a good reason?"
"I call it a strong one. Haven't you never found it?" (the Colonel was betrayed into winking). "From sixteen to sixty a woman will draw a man where a horse can't."
"Since that is so," said the Colonel, dryly, "you can tell him to come to breakfast."
"Am I to say that from you?"