geant Terry! was it company
colour sergeant or on the staff you were, sir?"

"Lasht noight, Carporal Rigby, Oi was sargint-major for the firsht toime
in my loife. I wuz promawted loike."

"That would be in the volunteer service, Sergeant-major."

"Yiss; but we had a rale cornel in command that's been through the
Amerikin war, they till me."

"Sergeant-major, there are no American soldiers."

"Shure, an' Oi'm thinkin', corporal," said the veteran, feeling a
metaphorical thrid on the tail av his coat. "Oi'm thinkin' there's some
pretty foine foightin's been done in Ameriky; Oi've sane it, carporal,
wid my own two eyes."

"A dog can fight, Sergeant-major, and cats are tantamount to the same
thing; but where, I say, is the soldierly bearing, the discipline, the
spree-doo-cor, as they say in France? Sergeant-major, you know and I
know that a man cannot be a tailor today and a soldier to-morrow, and an
agent for pictorial family bibles the day after."

"I dunno, for you see you're a conshtable an' Oi'm a hid missenger in a
governmint ahffice in the city."

"A soldier, Sergeant-major, can always serve the country, is, even as a
soldier, a government officer; that is a very different thing,
Sergeant-major."

"The cornel here was tillin' me there was min in his rigiment that was
merchints an' lawyers an' clerks, an' shtudints, as good sowldjers as
iver foired a carrboine or drawed a shabre on the inimy."

"That was a case, Sergeant-major, of mob meeting mob. Did these men ever
charge as our cavalry charged at Balaclava; did they ever stand,
Sergeant-major, as we, myself included, stood at Inkerman? Never,
Sergeant-major, never! They might have made soldiers, if taken young;
but, as they were, they were no more soldiers than Sylvanus Pilgrim
here."

"You shet up yer tater-trap, Consterble Rigby, an' don't go fer to abuse
better men nor you aint," angrily interrupted the subject of the
corporal's unflattering comparison. Then, seeing the veteran, hopeless
of convincing his opponent, retire to the garden to join the children,
Sylvanus waxed bold. "A soldier, Trypheeny, a common soldier! Ef I owned
a dawg, a yaller dawg, I wouldn't go and make the pore beast a soldier.
Old pipeclay and parade, tattoo and barricks and punishment drill, likes
ter come around here braggin' up his lazy, slavish life. Why don't he
git a dawg collar and a chain at wonst and git tied up ter his kennel.
Ef you want a man, Trypheeny, get one as