"And I too," he said good-humouredly, "have been put on half-pay,
but your half-pay can hardly give you enough to buy tobacco! Here,
corporal!" and he tried to force the gold coin into the young man's
closed hand, which rested on the gunwale of the gig.

The young Corsican reddened, drew himself up, bit his lips, and seemed,
for a moment, on the brink of some angry reply. Then suddenly his
expression changed and he burst out laughing. The colonel, grasping his
gold piece still in his hand, sat staring at him.

"Colonel," said the young man, when he had recovered his gravity, "allow
me to offer you two pieces of advice--the first is never to offer money
to a Corsican, for some of my fellow-countrymen would be rude enough to
throw it back in your face; the second is not to give people titles
they do not claim. You call me 'corporal,' and I am a lieutenant--the
difference is not very great, no doubt, still----"

"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" exclaimed Sir Thomas. "But the skipper told me
you were a corporal, and that your father and all your family had been
corporals before you!"

At these words the young man threw himself back and laughed louder than
ever, so merrily that the skipper and his two sailors joined the chorus.

"Forgive me, colonel!" he cried at last. "The mistake is so comical, and
I have only just realized it. It is quite true that my family glories in
the fact that it can reckon many corporals among its ancestors--but our
Corsican corporals never wore stripes upon their sleeves! Toward the
year of grace 1100 certain villages revolted against the tyranny of the
great mountain nobles, and chose leaders of their own, whom they called