"Could not pay for a pair of boots," added Uncle Jack.

"Or," said Mr. Squills, "save you one twinge of the cursed rheumatism
you have got for life from that night's bivouac in the Portuguese
marshes,--to say nothing of the bullet in your cranium, and that cork-
leg, which must much diminish the salutary effects of your
constitutional walk."

"Gentlemen," resumed the Captain, nothing abashed, "in going back to
those barbarous ages, I go back to the true principles of honor. It is
precisely because this round piece of silver has no value in the market
that it is priceless, for thus it is only a proof of desert. Where
would be the sense of service in this medal, if it could buy back my
leg, or if I could bargain it away for forty thousand a year? No, sirs,
its value is this,--that when I wear it on my breast, men shall say,
'That formal old fellow is not so useless as he seems. He was one of
those who saved England and freed Europe.' And even when I conceal it
here," and, devoutly kissing the medal, Uncle Roland restored it to its
ribbon and its resting-place, "and no eye sees it, its value is yet
greater in the thought that my country has not degraded the old and true
principles of honor, by paying the soldier who fought for her in the
same coin as that in which you, Mr. Jack, sir, pay your bootmaker's
bill. No, no, gentlemen. As courage was the first virtue that honor
called forth, the first virtue from which all safety and civilization
proceed, so we do right to keep that one virtue at least clear and
unsullied from all the money-making, mercenary, pay-me-in-cash
abominations which are the vices, not the virtues, of the civilization
it has produced."

My Uncle Roland here came to a full stop; and, filling his glass, rose