"Well, Sergeant?"
"Among 'em—you, mam!" said he; and here, aiming a somewhat random blow with the hammer he hit himself on the thumb and swore. Whereon Mrs. Agatha, having duly reproved him, was for examining the injured member but, shaking his head, he sucked it fiercely instead and thereafter proceeded to hammer away harder than ever.
"But then—you are—neither of you so very—old, Sergeant."
"The Major was thirty-one the day Ramillies was fought and I was thirty-three—and that was ten years agone mam."
"And you are both monstrous young for your age—so straight and upright—and handsome. Y-e-e-s, the Major is very handsome—despite the scar on his cheek—the wonder to me is that he don't get married."
Hereupon the Sergeant dropped the hammer.
"As to yourself, Sergeant," pursued Mrs. Agatha, her bright eyes brim-full of mischief, "you'll never be really happy and content until you do."
Hereupon the Sergeant stooped for the hammer and seemed uncommonly red in the face about it.
"As to that mam," said he, a thought more ponderously than usual, "as to that, I shall never look for a wife until the Major does, it has become a matter o'——"
"Duty, of course, Sergeant!"