"
"And the lady?"
"The Countess is, I believe, in every way worthy of so good a man," he
answered, a little dryly. "I think I heard her sing this evening."
"Yes, I daresay; she is very accomplished." After a few moments' silence
he continued.
"I must not lose sight of you, for I should be sorry, when next you meet
my friend Lord R----, that you had to tell him you had been pigeoned in
Paris. A rich Englishman as you are, with so large a sum at his Paris
bankers, young, gay, generous, a thousand ghouls and harpies will be
contending who shall be the first to seize and devour you."
At this moment I received something like a jerk from the elbow of the
gentleman at my right. It was an accidental jog, as he turned in his
seat.
"On the honor of a soldier, there is no man's flesh in this company
heals so fast as mine."
The tone in which this was spoken was harsh and stentorian, and almost
made me bounce. I looked round and recognized the officer whose large
white face had half scared me in the inn-yard, wiping his mouth
furiously, and then with a gulp of Magon, he went on:
"No one! It's not blood; it is ichor! it's miracle! Set aside stature,
thew, bone, and muscle--set aside courage, and by all the angels of
death, I'd fight a lion naked, and dash his teeth down his jaws with my
fist, and flog him to death with his own tail! Set aside, I say, all
those attributes, which I am allowed to possess, and I am worth six men
in any campaign, for that one quality of healing as I do--rip me up,
punch me through, tear me to tatters with bomb-shells, and nature has me
whole again, while your tailor would fine--draw an old coat.
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