Page:Eugene Aram vol 2 - Lytton (1832).djvu/48

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EUGENE ARAM.

ness of the Corporal, "and what, after all, is the great charm of the world, that you so much wish to return to it?"

"Augh!" replied the Corporal, "'tis a pleasant thing to look about un with all one's eyes open; rogue here, rogue there—keeps one alive;—life in Lunnon, life in a village—all the difference 'twixt healthy walk, and a doze in arm-chair; by the faith of a man, 'tis!"

"What! it is pleasant to have rascals about one?"

"Surely yes," returned the Corporal drily; "what so delightful like as to feel one's cliverness and 'bility all set an end—bristling up like a porkypine; nothing makes a man tread so light, feel so proud, breathe so briskly, as the knowledge that he's all his wits about him, that he's a match for any one, that the Divil himself could not take him in. Augh! that's what I calls the use of an immortal soul—bother!"

Walter laughed.

"And to feel one is likely to be cheated is the pleasantest way of passing one's time in town, Bunting, eh?"