if I do get ever so skinny on frogs and thin soup, I can get fat
on roast beef again when I get back."

"That is all nonsense, Harry, about frogs and starving. The French
style of cookery differs from ours, but they eat just as much, and
although they may not, as a rule, be as broad and heavy as Englishmen,
that is simply a characteristic of race; the Latin peoples are of
slighter build than the Teutonic. As to their food, you know that
the Romans, who were certainly judges of good living, considered
the snail a great luxury, and I dare say ate frogs too. A gentleman
who had made the grand tour told me that he had tasted them in Paris
and found them very delicate eating. You may not like the living
quite at first, but you will soon get over that, and once accustomed
to it you will like it quite as well as our solid joints. My
principal objection to your going lies quite in another direction.
Public opinion in France is much disturbed. In the National Assembly,
which is the same as our Parliament, there is a great spirit
of resistance to the royal authority, something like a revolution
has already been accomplished, and the king is little more than a
prisoner."

"But that would surely make no difference to me, sir!"

"No, I don't see that it should, Harry. Still, it would cause your
mother a good deal of anxiety."

"I don't see it could make any difference," Harry repeated; "and
you see, sir, when I go into the army and there is war, mother
would be a great deal more anxious."