"
"What! have they got cattle and sheep there, your honor?" Denis asked
incredulously.
"Of course they have, Denis; just the same as we have."
"The hathens!" Denis exclaimed. "To think that men who can get beef
and mutton should feed upon such craturs as snails and such like. It's
downright flying in the face of Providence, your honor."
"Nonsense, Denis; they eat beef and mutton just the same as we do. As
to the frogs and snails, these are expensive luxuries, just as game is
with us. There is nothing more nasty about snails after all than there
is about oysters; and as to frogs they were regarded as great dainties
by the Romans, who certainly knew what good eating was."
"Sure, I am a Roman myself, your honor--so are most of the men of the
regiment--but I never heard tell of sich a thing."
"Not that sort of Roman, Denis," Ralph laughed. "The old
Romans--people who lived long before there were any popes--a people
who could fight as well as any that ever lived, and who were as fond
of good living as they were of fighting."
"Well, your honor, there is no accounting for tastes. There was
Bridget Maloney, whom I courted before I entered the regiment. Well,
your honor, if you would believe it, she threw over a dacent boy like
myself, and married a little omadoun of a man about five feet high,
and with one shoulder higher than the other.
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