They do fight a good deal, that's a fact, and there's
no end of trouble in our militia battalion too. They all want to be
captain, and they don't get on somehow as well as the fire companies.
But still it's a fine thing to see all this military spirit. I didn't
see a uniform for years, and now you can't hire a man to dig a ditch
who hasn't got a stripe on one leg of his trousers at any rate. Girls
like soldiers, I tell you, and they like pensions too. I've just got
married myself. My wife is seventeen. Now I've drawed my pension for
nearly forty years, and she'll draw it for sixty more if she has any
luck; that'll make over a hundred. That's something like. Why, if one
of these fellows is twenty now and marries a girl of seventeen when
he's ninety, and she lives till she's ninety, they can keep drawing
money for a hundred and fifty years, and no mistake. It's better than a
savings bank. Here they come!"
The procession had formed round the corner at the other end of the main
street, and now the band began to play, and the column could be seen
advancing. First the band passed with an escort of small boys running
along in the gutter on either side. Then came two carriages containing
the heroes, two in each. They held themselves stiffly and took off
their hats, and no one would have supposed that they had drunk too much
if the fact had not been universally understood by the public.
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