off. Ay, I did send him off looking fine, and here have I been eating
my heart out ever since. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Oh, I don't know. Yes, I do. Of course, I wasn't going to tattle
about what my father and mother said, but when I heard you talk as you
did, and seem so cut up and unjust, why, I did."

"Here, let me have it, my lad! Kick away! Jump on me for an old fool.
Why, I'm as blind as old Jenk. Worse.--She'd feel safer if there was
any trouble. Bless her! Oh, what an old fool I've been. No wonder
I've got so weak and thin."

"Ha, ha, ha!"

"What are you laughing at, sir?"

"You weak and thin! Why, you're as strong as a horse."

"Well, I am, Master Roy," said the man, with a grim smile of pride.
"But I have got a bit thin, sir."

"Not a bit thinner."

"Well, I aren't enjoyed my vittles since the master went, sir. You
can't contradick that."

"No, and don't want to; but you did eat a four or five pound eel that
you'd no right to catch."

"That I didn't, sir. I give it to poor old Jenk to make a pie. I never
tasted it."

"Then you may catch as many as you like, Ben, without asking."

"Thank you, sir; but I don't want to go eeling now. Here, let's have
all this fighting-tackle so as you can see your face in it. But I say,
my lad, do 'ee, now do 'ee, alter your mind; leave being statesman to
them soft, smooth kind o' fellows like Master Pawson."

"I don't see why one couldn't be a statesman and a soldier too," said
the boy.

"I don't know nothing about that sort, sir; but I do know how to handle
a sword or to load a gun. I do say, though, as you're going wrong
instead of right."

"How?"

"How, sir? Just look at your hands."

"Well, what's the matter with them?" said the boy, holding them out.

Ben Martlet uttered a low, chuckling laugh.

"I'll tell you, sir. S'pose any one's badly, and the doctor comes; what
does he do first?"

"Feels his pulse."

"What else?"

"Looks at his tongue."

"That's it, my lad; and he knows directly from his tongue what's the
matter with him. Now, you see, Master Roy, I aren't a doctor."

"Not you, Ben; doctors cure people; soldiers kill 'em."

"Not always, Master Roy," said the old fellow, whose face during the
last few minutes had lit up till he seemed in the highest of glee.
"Aren't it sometimes t'other way on? But look here: doctors look at
people's tongues to see whether they wants to be physicked, or to have
their arms or le