Sam took up a copy and looked at it too.
"I believe it is," he said. "I didn't half look at it the other day. I'm ever so much obliged to you for telling me and stopping the telegram. But between you and me, the circular ought to be suppressed anyway. What business have these people to talk about equal rights and the consent of the governed? The men who wrote the Declaration—Jeffries and the rest—were mere civilians and these ideas are purely civilian. Come, let's have them burned at once," and he called up two or three soldiers, and in a few minutes the circulars formed a mass of glowing ashes in the courtyard.
[CHAPTER X]
A Great Military Exploit
NE day while Sam was still waiting for Cleary to carry out his designs, his secretary told him that a sergeant wished to see him, and Sam directed him to show him into his office. The man was a rather sinister-looking individual, and his speech betrayed his Anglian origin.
"Colonel," said he, after the door was closed and they were alone, "I'm only a sergeant promoted from the ranks, but I'm not just an ordinary common soldier. I know a thing or two, and I've got a plan and I thought perhaps you would be glad to 'ear of it. I 'ave the 'abit of observing things, and most soldiers don't. Why, bless me, you can march them into a country and out again, and with their eyes front, they don't see a bloomin' thing. They're trained to see nothin'. They're good for nothin' but to do as they're bid. I used to be in the army in the old country, and once at Baldershot I saw Lord Bullsley come along on horseback and stop two soldiers carryin' a soup-pail.
"'Give me a taste of that,' says he, and one of them runs off and gets a ladle and gives him a taste. He spits it out and makes a face and shouts: