"Good heavens, forty!"
"Yes, sir, that's the mark; there or thereabouts."
"What! no more?"
"No, sir, not a day more; not an hour."
"Upon honor?"
"Yes, sir, upon honor; upon a soldier's honor."
"Ha! — ha! — ha! — Well, colonel, I would not for a thousand guineas that your riflemen shot as wide off the mark as you guess. The British would not dread them as they do. Forty years old, indeed! why what will you say, colonel, when I tell you that I have been two and forty years a soldier."
Here we all exclaimed, "Impossible, general! impossible."
"I ask your pardon, gentlemen," replied he, "it is not at all impossible, but very certain. Very certain that I have been two and forty years a soldier in the service of the king of France!"
"O wonderful! two and forty years! Well then, at that rate, and pray how old, general, may you take yourself to be?"