He retired unostentatiously, as many of Her Majesty's modest servants have done before and since.

John told me, that when an officer thinks he recognizes one of these retiring heroes, and would know if he has really been in the service, that he may restore him, if possible, to a grateful country, he comes suddenly upon him, and says, sharply, "Strap!" If he has ever worn the shoulder-strap, he has learned the reprimand for its ill adjustment.

The old word of command flashes through his muscles, and his hand goes up in an instant to the place where the strap used to be.
[I was all the time preparing for my grand coup, you understand; but I saw they were not quite ready for it, and so continued, -- always in illustration of the general principle I had laid down.] Yes, odd things come out in ways that nobody thinks of.

There was a legend, that, when the Danish pirates made descents upon the English coast, they caught a few Tartars occasionally, in the shape of Saxons, who would not let them go,--on the contrary, insisted on their staying, and, to make sure of it, treated them as Apollo treated Marsyas, or an Bartholinus has treated a fellow-creature in his title-page, and, having divested them of the one essential and perfectly fitting garment, indispensable in the mildest climates, nailed the same on the church-door as we do the banns of marriage, in terrorem.
[There was a laugh at this among some of the young folks; but as I looked at our landlady, I saw that "the water stood in her eyes," as it did in Christiana's when the interpreter asked her about the spider, and I fancied, but wasn't quite sure that the schoolmistress blushed, as Mercy did in the same conversation, as you remember.] That sounds like a cock-and-bull-story,--said the young fellow whom they call John.

I abstained from making Hamlet's remark to Horatio, and continued.
Not long since, the church-wardens were repairing and beautifying an old Saxon church in a certain English village, and among other things thought the doors should be attended to.