JACK. Yes; rolled up in three of my flannel waistcoats to protect you.
JESSIE. Oh, Cousin Jack, I do so long to hear all your adventures.
JACK. Then you shall have them; not all at once; mustn’t be greedy, little girl. Now for it. (They seat themselves.) Ahem! (in an impressive tone). In order to make a first-rate brick—
MRS. T. and JESSIE. A brick?
JACK. Don’t interrupt me! I repeat, in order to make a first-rate brick they put it on the kiln and bake it. Well, in order to make a first-rate soldier they send him to India and bake him—that was my case.
MRS. T. Well, from India you went to the Crimea?
JACK. Yes; there I took to rum, diluted with snowballs and gunpowder.
JESSIE. Poor Cousin! how you must have suffered!
JACK. Tolerably; but we ate well—when we’d got anything to eat—and slept well when we hadn’t to keep awake.
JESSIE. And you were never wounded?