last and luckiest one. On his travels, which I will
not pause to describe in detail, he acquired three gifts--a knapsack
which, when opened, discharged a regiment of grenadiers; a cloth
which, when spread, was covered with a meal; and a purse which, when
shaken, filled itself with money."

"Will you be serious, brother?" cried my uncle.

"I am entirely serious!" answered my father. "The problem of an army
and its pay I propose to solve by enlisting volunteers; and the
difficulty of feeding my troops (I had forgotten it and thank you for
reminding me) will be minimized by enlisting as few as possible.
Myself and Prosper make two; Priske, here, three; I would fain have
you accompany us, Gervase, but the estate cannot spare you.
Let me see--" He drummed for a moment on the table with his fingers.
"We ought to have four more at least, to make a show: and seven is a
lucky number."

"You seriously design," my uncle demanded, "to invade the island of
Corsica with an army of seven persons?"

"Most seriously I do. For consider. To begin with, this Theodore--
a vain hollow man--brought but sixteen, including many
non-combatants, and yet succeeded in winning a crown. You will allow
that to win a crown is a harder feat than to succeed to one.
On what reckoning then, or by what Rule-of-Three sum, should Prosper,
who goes to claim what already belongs to him, need more than seven?

"Further," my father continued, "it may well be argued that the fewer
he takes the better; since we sail not against the Corsicans but
against their foes, and therefore should count on finding in every
Corsican a soldier for our standard.

"Thirdly, the Corsicans are a touchy race, whom it would be impolitic
to offend with a show of foreign strength.

"Fourthly, we must look a little beyond the immediate enterprise, and
not (if we can help it) saddle Prosper's kingdom with a standing
army. For, as Bacon advises, that state stands in danger whose
warriors remain in a body and are used to donatives; whereof we see
examples in the turk's Janissaries and the Pretorian Bands of Rome.

"And fifthly, we have neither the time nor the money to collect a
stronger force. The occasion presses: and _fronte capillata est,
post haec Occasio calva_. Time turns a bald head to us if we miss
our moment to catch him by the forelock."

"The Abantes," put in Mr. Grylls, "practised the direct contrary: of
whom Homer tells us that they shaved the forepart of t