e country, after all, where a man may think and say what he
pleases! But that sort of work did not last long, as you may suppose;
their eyes were all fried out, d----n me, in three or four weeks! I had
been ill in my bed, for I was attached to the 72nd regiment, seventeen
hundred strong. I had a party of seamen with me; but the ophthalmia
made such ravages, that the whole regiment, colonel and all, went
stone blind--all, except one corporal! You may stare, gentlemen, but
it's very true. Well, this corporal had a precious time of it: he was
obliged to lead out the whole regiment to water--he led the way, and
two or three took hold of the skirts of his jacket, on each side; the
skirts of these were seized again by as many more; and double the
number to the last, and so all held on by one another, till they had
all had a drink at the well; and, as the devil would have it, there
was but one well among us all--so this corporal used to water the
regiment just as a groom waters his horses; and all spreading out, you
know, just like the tail of a peacock."

"Of which the corporal was the rump," interrupted the doctor.

The captain looked grave.

"You found it warm in that country?" inquired the surgeon.

"Warm!" exclaimed the captain; "I'll tell you what, doctor, when
you go where you have sent many a patient, and where, for that very
reason, you certainly will go, I only hope, for your sake, and for
that of your profession in general, that you will not find it quite so
hot as we found it in Egypt. What do you think of nineteen of my men
being killed by the concentrated rays of light falling on the barrels
of the sentinels' bright muskets, and setting fire to the powder? I
commanded a mortar battery at Acre, and I did the French infernal
mischief with the shells. I used to pitch in among them when they had
sat down to dinner: but how do you think the scoundrels weathered on
me at last? D----n me, they trained a parcel of poodle dogs to watch
the shells when they fell, and then to run and pull the fuses out with
their teeth. Did you ever hear of such d----d villains? By this means,
they saved hundreds of men, and only lost half a dozen dogs--fact,
by G----; only ask Sir Sydney Smith; he'll tell you the same, and a
d----d sight more."

The volubility of his tongue was only equalled by the rapidity of his
invention and the powers of mastication; for, during the whole of this
entertaining monodrame, his teeth were in constant