“Great work,” says Lennox, “rum coves those Turks must be in the field, eh? The colonel is up to a thing or two; if he was knocked on the head, there would be such promotion, no one would lament him, but his dear wife and five lovely daughters, and they would be really distressed to lose him.”
He don’t check the youthful ardour, on the contrary, chimes in, and is in hopes he can make interest at the Horse-guards for the regiment to go yet, and then he gives a wink to the doctor, who was in the corps when he was a boy, as much as to say, “Old fellow, you and I have seen enough of the pleasures of campaigning in our day, eh! Doctor, that is good wine; but it’s getting confounded dear lately; I don’t mind it myself, but it makes the expense of the mess fall heavy upon the youngsters.” The jolly subs look across the table and wink, for they know that’s all bunkum.
“Doctor,” sais a new hand, “do you know if Cargill has sold his orses. His leada is a cleverwish saut of thing, but the wheela is a riglar bute. That’s a goodish orse the Admewall wides; I wonder if he is going to take him ome with him.”
“Haven’t heard—can’t say. Jones, what’s that thing that wont burn, do you know? Confound the thing, I have got it on the tip of my tongue too.”
“Asphalt,” sais Jones.
“No! that’s not it; that’s what wide-awakes are made of.”
“Perhaps so,” sais Gage, “ass’felt is very appropriate for a fool’s cap.”
At which there is a great roar.
“No; but really what is it?”
“Is it arbutus?” sais Simpkins, “I think they make it at Killarney—”