"There are lots of things you have left behind you here,
that I, in your place, should have marched off without asking."
"The things are yours. That portrait of my father belonged to my Uncle
Stephen, and he made no exception in its favour when he willed Verner's
Pride, and all it contained, away from me. In point of legal right, I
was at liberty to touch nothing, beyond my personal effects."
"Liberty be hanged!" responded John. "You are over fastidious; always
were. Your father was the same, I know; can see it in his likeness. I
should say, by the look of that, he was too much of a gentleman for a
soldier."
Lionel smiled. "Some of our soldiers are the most refined gentlemen in
the world."
"I can't tell how they retain their refinement, then, amid the rough and
ready of camp life. I know I lost all I had at the diggings."
Lionel laughed outright at the notion of John Massingbird's losing his
refinement at the diggings. He never had any to lose. John joined in the
laugh.
"Lionel, old boy, do you know I always liked you, with all your
refinement; and it's a quality that never found great favour with me.
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