They had not been paid for six months, and were ripe for any mischief.

I was more than once tempted to forestall the colonel and begin the revolution on my own account; only my inability to produce before their eyes any arguments of the sort they would listen to restrained me.
Eleven o'clock had come and gone.

The senior captain had proposed the President's health.

It was drunk in sullen silence; I was the only man who honored it by rising from his seat.
The major had proposed the army, and they had drunk deep to their noble selves.

A young man of weak expression and quavering legs had proposed "The commerce of Aureataland," coupled with the name of Mr.
John Martin, in laudatory but incoherent terms, and I was on my legs replying.