as we slowly came along upon the tide
up the Tagus, "so you've nothing to fear."

"Upon my life," replied the major, "I don't half like the tone of our
conversation. There is a certain freedom young men affect now a-days
regarding morals that is not at all to my taste. When I was five or six and
twenty--"

"You were the greatest scamp in the service," cried Power.

"Fie, fie, Fred. If I was a little wild or so,"--here the major's eyes
twinkled maliciously,--"it was the ladies that spoiled me; I was always
something of a favorite, just like our friend Sparks there. Not that we
fared very much alike in our little adventures; for somehow, I believe I
was generally in fault in most of mine, as many a good man and many an
excellent man has been before." Here his voice dropped into a moralizing
key, as he added, "David, you know, didn't behave well to old Uriah. Upon
my life he did not, and he was a very respectable man."

"The King of Spain's sherry! the sherry!" cried I, fearing that the major's
digression might lose us a good story.

"You shall not have a drop of it," replied the major.

"But the story, Major, the story!"

"Nor the story, either."

"What," said Power, "will you break faith with us?"

"There's none to be kept with reprobates like you. Fill my glass."

"Hold there! stop!" cried Power. "Not a spoonful till he redeems his
pledge."

"Well, then, if you must have a story,--for most assuredly I must drink,--I
have no objection to give you a leaf from my early reminiscences; and in
compliment to Sparks there, my tale shall be of love."

"I dinna like to lose the king's story. I hae my thoughts it was na a bad
ane."

"Nor I neither, Doctor; but--"

"Come, come, you shall have that too, the first night we meet in a bivouac,
and as I fear the time may not be very far distant, don't be impatient;
besides a love-story--"

"Quite true," said Power, "a love-story claims precedence; _place aux
dames_. There's a bumper for you, old wickedness; so go along."

The major cleared off his glass, refilled it, sipped twice, and ogled it as
though he would have no peculiar objection to sip once more, took a long
pinch of snuff from a box nearly as long as, and something the shape of a
child's coffin, looked around to see that we were all attention, and thus
began:--

"When I have been in a moralizing mood, as I very frequently am about this
hour in the morning, I have often felt surprised by what little, trivi