"It isn't the single swallow I object to, Jack; it's the habit of drinking. That's a foolish thing, to say the least, for young fellows, like you and me, to get into; and we all know what it leads to. Who wants to become a tobacco-spitting, rum-drinking, filthy old man?"
"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Jack; rather feebly, however, for he could not help feeling that Frank was as much in the right as he was in the wrong. "You look a long ways ahead, it seems to me. I haven't thought of being an old man yet."
"If we live, we shall be men, and old men, too, some day," said Frank, without minding his sneers. "And you know we are laying the foundations of our future characters now."
"That's what your mother, or your Sunday school teacher, has been saying to you."
"No matter who has said it. I know it's true, and I hope I never shall forget it. I mean to become a true, honest man if I live; and now, I believe, is the time to begin."
"O, no doubt you'll be great things," grinned Jack.
The tone in which he said this was highly offensive; and Frank was provoked to retort,—
"You don't seem even to have thought what you are going to be. You try first one thing, then another, and stick to nothing. That's what your father said this morning, with tears in his eyes."
Jack turned red as fire, either with anger or shame, or both, and seemed meditating a passionate reply, when some of his companions, who had been eating their rations outside, entered the tent.
"Come in, boys," cried Jack, "and hear Frank preach. You didn't know we had a chaplain in our company—did ye? That's the parson, there, with the girl's hair. He can reel you off sermons like any thing. Fire away, Frank, and show the boys."