'Of course.'
'Query—is she beautiful?'
'I don't think Heaven ever created another so brilliant and so fascinating.'
'Indeed! you quite interest me. The deuce! I shall be in danger of losing both life and liberty; but I don't mean to wed in a hurry.'
'Fanny has a handsome fortune—she is rich.'
'Money is nothing to a sub of a year or two's standing.'
'True—but we may remain jolly subs long enough now.'
'Don't think of it, pray—but alas! peace will soon be proclaimed now, as we have polished off the imperial boots of His Majesty of Russia, and all the additional battalions must be reduced.'
'Fanny's bright hazel eyes—'
'Will not lure me into matrimony, pin-money, and baby-jumpers. I mean not to think of such things until I require cotton caps, water-gruel, and hot bottles at night; until I give up the polka, relinquish my pipe, and vote the mistletoe a most improper appendage to a Christmas chandelier; when I consider music a bore, and babies not a bother; when I deem flirtation disgraceful, and prefer a quiet game at crown-points to whirling with Maria or Louisa in the deux temps—I shall think of it seriously, and prepare to take upon my knee a little Jack Belton, and sing "Ride a cock horse to Bambury Cross," or of old "Humpty Dumpty who sat on a wall," and so forth.'