Enter SERJEANT TROUNCE, CORPORAL FLINT, and four SOLDIERS.
FIRST SOLDIER.
I say you are wrong; we should all speak together, each for himself, and all at once, that we may be heard the better.
SECOND SOLDIER.
Right, Jack, we’ll argue in platoons.
THIRD SOLDIER.
Ay, ay, let him have our grievances in a volley, and if we be to have a spokesman, there’s the corporal is the lieutenant’s countryman, and knows his humour.
CORPORAL FLINT.
Let me alone for that. I served three years, within a bit, under his honour, in the Royal Inniskillions, and I never will see a sweeter tempered gentleman, nor one more free with his purse. I put a great shammock in his hat this morning, and I’ll be bound for him he’ll wear it, was it as big as Steven’s Green.
FOURTH SOLDIER.
I say again then you talk like youngsters, like militia striplings: there’s a discipline, look’ee in all things, whereof the serjeant must be our guide; he’s a gentleman of words; he understands your foreign lingo, your figures, and such like auxiliaries in scoring. Confess now for a reckoning, whether in chalk or writing, ben’t he your only man?
CORPORAL FLINT.
Why the serjeant is a scholar to be sure, and has the gift of reading.
SERJEANT TROUNCE.
Good soldiers, and fellow-gentlemen, if you make me your spokesman, you will show the more judgment; and let me alone for the argument. I’ll be as loud as a drum, and point blank from the purpose.
ALL.
Agreed, agreed.
CORPORAL FLINT.
Oh, faith! here comes the lieutenant.—Now, Serjeant.