girl squeaks out, half in jest, and half in earnest?"

L'Isle was provoked to see that Lord Strathern was laughing at him,
and said, earnestly, "You cannot have forgotten, my lord, the state of
the army at the end of the campaign. Little has yet been done to bring
this brigade up to the mark, and little will be achieved by it in the
coming campaign in its present state. Now is the time to check the
licentious spirit by making some severe examples."

"I will do no such thing," said Lord Strathern, coolly. "The occasion
does not call for it. We will be in the field shortly, and want all
the bayonets we can muster. The brigade is too weak to spare men from
the ranks to put into irons."

"I did not suppose," said L'Isle, "that the warning my Lord Wellington
gave us not long since, would be so soon forgotten."

L'Isle alluded to the circular letter Wellington had addressed to his
subordinates, at the end of the campaign, in which he had politely
dubbed half of his officers idlers, whose habitual neglect of duty
suffered their commands to run into ruffianism. Perhaps their
commander was suffering under a fit of indigestion when he wrote it.
It certainly caused a general heartburning among his officers. Lord
Strathern, among others, had found it hard to digest, and now angrily
denounced it unjust.

"Well, my lord," said L'Isle, with more zeal than discretion, "by the
end of the campaign our men may be in a state to be improved by a
touch of discipline from _Julian Sanchez_ or _Carlos d'Espana_, unless
they reject them as too much like banditti!"