you slander their
generation."

"Slander your generation, sir?" cried the Colonel, "by likening it to my
own? Of all the monstrous insolence I ever heard--you may be thankful,
sir, that I name yours in the same breath with it. Be good enough to
hold your tongue, sir, and attend to your business, which is that of
listening to me. Well, my dear madam, at the period of which I speak, I
was in the office of my uncle, Marmaduke Ferrers, India merchant,
importer of tea, silks, that sort of thing. Learning the trade, you
understand; though, as I say, I was not aware that there was anything in
particular to learn. This is one of the lessons I did learn. One day I
was sent to the warehouse to count some barrels, and see them stowed
away in the vault where they belonged. They were a special thing,
barrels of minerals for some collection museum, I forget what. Out of
our own line, but we had undertaken to store and keep them for a time.
The vault was directly under the warehouse, which was some way from the
office. So! I went down and found no one there; The men were at their
dinner, you understand. They may have been a little in a hurry, may have
started a few minutes before the bell rang; I don't know how it was. At
any rate, I was in a towering passion; thought the whole business was
going to the dogs for want of discipline, wanted to dismiss every man in
the warehouse. Men who had been there before I was born, and knew more
about tea than I was likely to know in my lifetime. Well, sir, it came
into my ass's head that I would give these men a lesson, show them that
there was some one in the place that meant to have things done when he
wanted them done. I would stow those barrels myself. I was strong as a
bull, you remember--I beg ten thousand pardons! you and your husband
were infants when this happened; not out of long clothes, I am positive.
But I was uncommonly strong, and thought Milo and Hercules would have
found me a tough subject to tackle. Well--speaking of tackle--there was
the rope and pulley, all ready for lowering; block up at the ceiling,
rope dangling,--just over the trap that led into the vault. There were
the barrels; nothing was easier, I thought. Child's play; I would have
every one of the barrels lowered and stowed before those scoundrels came
back from their dinner. I pushed the first barrel to the edge of the
trap (lifted the trap-door first, you understand), hooked on the 'fall,'
pleased as Punch with myse