‘Well! so I am.’
‘Well, my friend, you are a conjuror then.’
‘No, I ayn’t; I’m a marine.’
‘A very useless person, then.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean to say, that if the sailors were properly educated, such an amphibious corps would never have been formed, and some of the most atrocious sinecures ever tolerated would consequently not have existed.’
‘Sinecures! I never heard of him. I served under Lord Combermere. Maybe you have heard of him, ma’am? A nice man; a beautiful man. I have seen him stand in a field like that, with the shot falling about him like hail, and caring no more for them than peas.’
‘If that were for bravado,’ said the utilitarian, ‘I think it a very silly thing.’
‘Bravado! I never heard of him. It was for his king and country.’
‘Was it in India?’ asked the widow.