However, he went back, and said, very civilly, "This is a free country, but I am afraid I have been a little too free in expressing my opinion; let me hope you are not annoyed with me." "I am never annoyed with a fool," said the implacable Colonel.
This was too much for any little man to stand.
"That is why you are always on such good terms with yourself," said Percy, as red as a turkey-cock.
The Colonel literally stared with amazement.

Hitherto it had been for him to deliver bayonet thrusts, not to receive them.
Julia pounced on her bantam-cock, and with her left hand literally pulled him off the premises, and shook her right fist at him till she got him out of sight of the foe; then she kissed him on both cheeks, and burst out laughing; and, indeed, she was so tickled that she kept laughing at intervals, whether the immediate subject of the conversation was grave or gay.

It is hard not to laugh when a very little fellow cheeks a very big one.

Even Walter, though he admired as well as loved his father, hung his head, and his shoulders shook with suppressed risibility.

Colonel Clifford detected him in this posture, and in his wrath gave his chair a whack with his staff that brought Master Walter to the position of a private soldier when the drill-sergeant cries "ATTENTION!" "Did you hear that, sir ?" said he.
"I did," said Walter: "cheeky little beggar.