"You're a modest fellow."

"Why, the longer a man lives, the more knows his value; would not sell
myself a bargain now, whatever might at twenty-one!"

"At that rate you would be beyond all price at seventy," said Walter:
"but now tell me, Bunting, were you ever in love,--really and honestly in
love?"

"Indeed, your honour," said the Corporal, "I have been over head and
ears; but that was afore I learnt to swim. Love's very like bathing. At
first we go souse to the bottom, but if we're not drowned, then we gather
pluck, grow calm, strike out gently, and make a deal pleasanter thing of
it afore we've done. I'll tell you, Sir, what I thinks of love: 'twixt
you and me, Sir, 'tis not that great thing in life, boys and girls want
to make it out to be; if 'twere one's dinner, that would be summut, for
one can't do without that; but lauk, Sir, Love's all in the fancy. One
does not eat it, nor drink it; and as for the rest,--why it's bother!"

"Bunting, you're a beast," said Walter in a rage, for though the Corporal
had come off with a slight rebuke for his sneer at religion, we grieve to
say that an attack on the sacredness of love seemed a crime beyond all
toleration to the theologian of twenty-one.

The Corporal bowed, and thrust his tongue in his cheek.

There was a pause of some moments.

"And what," said Walter, for his spirits were raised, and he liked