"I wonder what you would have said afterwards?
Why! I might have been kicked out of the service for looting a mule from a nation in alliance with His Majesty.

Or I might have been battered to a pulp with flails and pitch-forks--a pretty tale to get abroad about one of your officers--while trying to steal a mule.

Or chased ignominiously to the boat--for you would not have expected me to shoot down unoffending people for the sake of a mangy mule.

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