I prefer to read a battle with my musket and my sword.

Pif! paf! pouf! that is the way I read.

And now that I can read no more, I have but one pleasure,--to tell of my battles.

Is not that better than your 'Thousand and One Nights,' youngster ?" "You have, indeed, much to tell, old Nonesuch," replied the youngster guardedly, "and you have, indeed, seen much." "Ah, have I not, though!" old Nonesuch responded.

"Do you not remember, Corsican, in the third year of the republic, as our government was then called, how the word came: 'The English are in Toulon! Soldiers of France, you must dislodge them!' ?" "Ah, do I not, old Nonesuch! I was a conscript then," replied the Corsican.
"So, too, was I," said the old veteran.