atters would have known from their make and pattern to be the uniform
of a serjeant in the Royal East London Volunteers.

As the locksmith put his mug down, empty, on the bench whence it had
smiled on him before, he glanced at these articles with a laughing eye,
and looking at them with his head a little on one side, as though he
would get them all into a focus, said, leaning on his hammer:

'Time was, now, I remember, when I was like to run mad with the desire
to wear a coat of that colour. If any one (except my father) had called
me a fool for my pains, how I should have fired and fumed! But what a
fool I must have been, sure-ly!'

'Ah!' sighed Mrs Varden, who had entered unobserved. 'A fool indeed. A
man at your time of life, Varden, should know better now.'

'Why, what a ridiculous woman you are, Martha,' said the locksmith,
turning round with a smile.

'Certainly,' replied Mrs V. with great demureness. 'Of course I am. I
know that, Varden. Thank you.'

'I mean--' began the locksmith.

'Yes,' said his wife, 'I know what you mean. You speak quite plain
enough to be understood, Varden. It's very kind of you to adapt yourself
to my capacity, I am sure.'

'Tut, tut, Martha,' rejoined the locksmith; 'don't take offence at
nothing. I mean, how strange it is of you to run down volunteering, when
it's done to defend you and all the other women, and our own fireside
and everybody else's, in case of need.'

'It's unchristian,' cried Mrs Varden, shaking her head.

'Unchristian!' said the locksmith. 'Why, what the devil--'

Mrs Varden looked at the ceiling, as in expectation that the consequence
of this profanity would be the immediate descent of the four-post
bedstead on the second floor, together with the best sitting-room on the
first; but no visible judgment occurring, she heaved a deep sigh, and
begged her husband, in a tone of resignation, to go on, and by all means
to blaspheme as much as possible, because he knew she liked it.

The locksmith did for a moment seem disposed to gratify her, but he gave
a great gulp, and mildly rejoined:

'I was going to say, what on earth do you call it unchristian for?
Which would be most unchristian, Martha--to sit quietly down and let our
houses be sacked by a foreign army, or to turn out like men and drive
'em off? Shouldn't I be a nice sort of a Christian, if I crept into
a corner of my own chimney and looked on while a parcel of whiskered
savages bore off Dolly--or you