Your hand, Mr. David; you
have the character that I respect the most; you are one of those
from whom a gentleman can take a favour and no more words about it.
I am an old soldier," he went on, looking rather disgusted-like
around my chamber, "and you need not fear I shall prove
burthensome. I have ate too often at a dyke-side, drank of the
ditch, and had no roof but the rain."
"I should be telling you," said I, "that our breakfasts are sent
customarily in about this time of morning. I propose I should go
now to the tavern, and bid them add a cover for yourself and delay
the meal the matter of an hour, which will give you an interval to
meet your daughter in."
Methought his nostrils wagged at this. "O, an hour" says he.
"That is perhaps superfluous. Half an hour, Mr. David, or say
twenty minutes; I shall do very well in that. And by the way," he
adds, detaining me by the coat, "what is it you drink in the
morning, whether ale or wine?"
"To be frank with you, sir," says I, "I drink nothing else but
spare, cold water."
"Tut-tut," says he, "that is fair destruction to the stomach, take
an old campaigner's word for it.
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