At last he came home one day more merry and abusive than ever. “Gaptain,” says he, “I have goot news for you—a goot place. Your lordship vill not be able to geep your garridge, but you vill be gomfortable, and serve his Majesty.”
“Serve his Majesty?” says I. “Dearest Mr. Stiffelkind, have you got me a place under Government?”
“Yes, and somting better still—not only a place, but a uniform: yes, Gaptain Stobbs, a RED GOAT.”
“A red coat! I hope you don't think I would demean myself by entering the ranks of the army? I am a gentleman, Mr. Stiffelkind—I can never—no, I never—”
“No, I know you will never—you are too great a goward—ha! ha!—though dis is a red goat, and a place where you must give some HARD KNOCKS too—ha! ha!—do you gomprehend?—and you shall be a general instead of a gaptain—ha! ha!”
“A general in a red coat, Mr. Stiffelkind?”
“Yes, a GENERAL BOSTMAN!—ha! ha! I have been vid your old friend, Bunting, and he has an uncle in the Post Office, and he has got you de place—eighteen shillings a veek, you rogue, and your goat. You must not oben any of de letters you know.”
And so it was—I, Robert Stubbs, Esquire, became the vile thing he named—a general postman!
I was so disgusted with Stiffelkind's brutal jokes, which were now more brutal than ever, that when I got my place in the Post Office, I never went near the fellow again: for though he had done me a favor in keeping me from starvation, he certainly had done it in a very rude, disagreeable manner, and showed a low and mean spirit in SHOVING me into such a degraded place as that of postman. But what had I to do? I submitted to fate, and for three years or more, Robert Stubbs, of the North Bungay Fencibles, was—