hear of such a thing. He had something like a
religious passion for royal grant; he seemed to look
upon it as a sort of sacred swag, and one could not
irritate him in any way so quickly and so surely as by
an attack upon that venerable institution. If I ven-
tured to cautiously hint that there was not another
respectable family in England that would humble itself
to hold out the hat -- however, that is as far as I ever
got; he always cut me short there, and peremptorily,
too.

But I believed I saw my chance at last. I would
form this crack regiment out of officers alone -- not a
single private. Half of it should consist of nobles,
who should fill all the places up to Major-General, and