"'Tis 'cause I knows the world," said the Corporal, exceedingly nettled, "that I wants to get back to it. I have heard of some spoonies as never kist a girl, but never heard of any one who had kist a girl once, that did not long to be at it again." "And I suppose, Mr. Profligate, it is that longing which makes you so hot for London?" "There have been worse longings nor that," quoth the Corporal gravely. "Perhaps you meditate marrying one of the London belles; an heiress--eh?" "Can't but say," said the Corporal very solemnly, "but that might be 'ticed to marry a fortin, if so be she was young, pretty, good-tempered, and fell desperately in love with me,--best quality of all." "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 recurring to the quaint shrewdness of the Corporal, "and what, after all, is the great charm of the world, that you so much wish to return to it?" "Augh!" replied the Corporal, "'tis a pleasant thing to look about un with all one's eyes open; rogue here, rogue there--keeps one alive;--life in Lunnon, life in a village--all the difference 'twixt healthy walk, and a doze in arm-chair; by the faith of a man, 'tis!" "What! it is pleasant to have rascals about one?" "Surely yes," returned the Corporal drily; "what so delightful like as to feel one's cliverness and 'bility all set an end--bristling up like a porkypine; nothing makes a man tread so light, feel so proud, breathe so briskly, as the knowledge that he's all his wits about him, that he's a match for any one, that the Divil himself could not take him in. Augh! that's what I calls the use of an immortal soul--bother!" Walter laughed.