'Oh? you are again rebuking me! You have missed your proper place. You should be army chaplain. I've been in India, and I've fought the Afghans. Ah! I've been with General Pollock, and stormed and looted Cabul.'
'You have been in battle!' exclaimed little Joe.
'I have, and shot men, and run my bayonet into a dozen naked Afghans.' He laughed boisterously. 'It is like sticking a pig. That sack of Cabul was high fun. No quarter given. We blew up the great bazaar, crack! boom! high into the air, but not till we had cleared away all the loot we could. And, will you believe it? we marched away in triumph, carrying off the cedar doors of Somnath, as Samson with the gates of Gaza. Lord Ellenborough ordered it, and we did it. But they were not the original gates after all, but copies. Then, damn it, I thought——'
'Silence,' said Honor indignantly. 'With the child on your knee will you curse and swear?'
'An oath will do no harm, will it, Joe?' asked the soldier, addressing the little boy, who sat staring in his face with wonder and admiration. 'A good oath clears the heart, as a cough relieves a choking throat, is it not so, Joe? or as a discharge of guns breaks a waterspout, eh?' The little boy looked from his brother to his sister. It was characteristic of the condition of affairs in the house that he did not look to his father.
'I don't know, brother Charles,' answered he. 'Honor would not allow it, she says it is wicked.'
'Oh, she!' mocked the soldier. 'I suppose you are under petticoat government still, or have been. Never mind, Joe. Now that I am come home you shall take orders from me, and not from her.'
'Joe,' said Honor sternly, 'go at once to bed.'
'He shall stay and hear the rest of the story. He shall hear how I lost my finger.'
The child hesitated.