And meanwhile Quirk, head downward,
so to speak, charged rank and file, and sent them flying; arose again
and swept the heads off officers; and was just about to annihilate the
volunteers when Mangan interrupted him.
"Oh, you expect too much," he said, in his slow and half-contemptuous
fashion. "The British soldier is not over well-educated, I admit; but
you needn't try him by an impossible standard. I dare say you are
thinking of ancient days when a Roman general could address his troops
in Latin and make quite sure of being understood; but you can't expect
Tommy Atkins to be so learned. And our generals, as you say, may chiefly
distinguish themselves at reviews; but the reviews they seem to me to be
too fond of are those published monthly. As for the volunteers--"
"You will have a joke about them, too, I suppose," Quirk retorted. "An
excellent subject for a joke--the safety of the country! A capital
subject for a merry jest; Nero fiddling with Rome in flames--"
"I beg your pardon? Nero never did anything of the kind," Mangan
observed, with a perfectly diabolical inconsequence, "for violins
weren't invented in those days."
This was too much for Mr.
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