I cannot for the life of me remember what year it was in, somewhere between forty-two and forty-five, I believe, because within a year or two of that time we heard that a large comet had appeared in England, and that Sir Robert Peel was distrusted on the subject of Protection.

After all, it is no great consequence, though it is rather provoking, because I never before or since held more than eight trumps.

Burnside, the cattle-dealer, claims to have held eleven, but I may state, once for all, that I doubt that man's statements on this and every other subject on which he speaks.-- He knows where I am to be found.
My man Dick, too, somehow or another, constituted himself my groom and valet.

And the Major was well contented with the arrangement.

So we four, Major and Mrs.Buckley, Captain Brentwood and I, sat there in the old station night after night, playing our whist, till even my head, the youngest of the four, began to be streaked with grey, and sixteen years were past..