understanding than twenty such fellows, I'd have them both whipt out
of the regiment."

"So, then, you do not know the person to whom it was writ?" said
Booth.

"Lieutenant," cries the colonel, "your question deserves no answer. I
ought to take time to consider whether I ought not to resent the
supposition. Do you think, sir, I am acquainted with a rascal?"

"I do not suppose, colonel," cries Booth, "that you would willingly
cultivate an intimacy with such a person; but a man must have good
luck who hath any acquaintance if there are not some rascals among
them."

"I am not offended with you, child," says the colonel. "I know you did
not intend to offend me."

"No man, I believe, dares intend it," said Booth.

"I believe so too," said the colonel; "d--n me, I know it. But you
know, child, how tender I am on this subject. If I had been ever
married myself, I should have cleft the man's skull who had dared look
wantonly at my wife."

"It is certainly the most cruel of all injuries," said Booth. "How
finely doth Shakespeare express it in his Othello!

'But there, where I had treasured up my soul.'"