"Gentlemen," resumed the Captain, nothing abashed, "in going back to these barbarous ages, I go back to the true principles of honour. 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 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 honour 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 honour called forth--the first virtue from which all safety and civilisation 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 civilisation it has produced." My Uncle Roland here came to a full stop; and, filling his glass, rose and said solemnly--"A last bumper, gentlemen.--'To the dead who died for England!'" CHAPTER III. "Indeed, my dear, you must take it. You certainly _have_ caught cold: you sneezed three times together." "Yes, ma'am, because I would take a pinch of Uncle Roland's snuff, just to say that I _had_ taken a pinch out of his box--the honour of the thing, you know." "Ah, my dear! what was that very clever remark you made at the same time which so pleased your father--something about Jews and the college?" "Jews and--oh! '_pulverem Olympicum collegisse juvat_,' my dear mother--which means, that it is a pleasure to take a pinch out of a brave man's snuff-box. I say, mother, put down the posset. Yes, I'll take it; I will, indeed. Now, then, sit here--that's right--and tell me all you know about this famous old Captain. Imprimis, he is older than my father?" "To be sure!" exclaimed my mother indignantly; "he looks twenty years older; but there is only five years' real difference. Your father must always look young." "And why does Uncle Roland put that absurd French _de_ before his name--and why were my father and he not good friends--and is he married--and has he any children?"