“I am sorry that you should have lost your health in such an ugly place. I would have warned you if I had thought you had any intentions in that quarter.”
“Did you know of the woman having . . . ?”
“Zounds! Did I not? It is only a week since I paid a visit to the very same place myself, and I believe the creature was all right before my visit.”
“Then I have to thank you for the present she has bestowed upon me.”
“Most likely; but it is only a trifle, and you can easily get cured if you care to take the trouble.”
“What! Do you not try to cure yourself?”
“Faith, no. It would be too much trouble to follow a regular diet, and what is the use of curing such a trifling inconvenience when I am certain of getting it again in a fortnight. Ten times in my life I have had that patience, but I got tired of it, and for the last two years I have resigned myself, and now I put up with it.”
“I pity you, for a man like you would have great success in love.”
“I do not care a fig for love; it requires cares which would bother me much more than the slight inconvenience to which we were alluding, and to which I am used now.”
“I am not of your opinion, for the amorous pleasure is insipid when love does not throw a little spice in it. Do you think, for instance, that the ugly wretch I met at the guard-room is worth what I now suffer on her account?”