Looe Die-hards had never been given an opportunity for a brush with
their country's hereditary foes. How, then, did they acquire their
proud title?

It was the Doctor's discovery; and perhaps, in the beginning,
professional pride may have had something to do with it; but his
enthusiasm was quickly caught up by Captain Pond and communicated to
the entire Company.

"Has it ever occurred to you, Pond," the Doctor began, one evening in
the late summer of 1808, as the two strolled homeward from parade,
"to reflect on the rate of mortality in this Company of yours?
Have you considered that in all these five years since their
establishment not a single man has died?"

"Why the deuce should he?"

"But look here: I've worked it out on paper, and the mean age of your
men is thirty-four years, or some five years more than the mean age
of the entire population of East and West Looe. You see, on the one
hand, you enlist no children, and on the other, you've enlisted
several men of ripe age, because you're accustomed to them and know
their ways--which is a great help in commanding a Company. But this
makes the case still more remarkable. Take any collection of
seventy souls the sum of whose ages, divided by seventy, shall be
thirty-four, and by all the laws of probability three, at least,
ought to die in the course of a year. I speak, for the moment, of
civilians. In the military profession," the Doctor continued, with
perfect seriousness, "especially in time of war, the death-rate will
be enormously heightened. But"--with a flourish of the hand--