I have never made mock of religion, coming of a line of godly ancestors, yet I felt there could be no necessity for making such noise over it morning, noon, and night.

Yet neither entreaty nor threat moved him to desist, so I came to the conclusion that he either considered the Almighty deaf, or else was totally unconscious of his own lung power.

As to his appetite--but there are things of which one may not justly write, so I content myself by saying that, all in all, he was not so bad a comrade.
De Noyan kept to his nature, and I liked him none the worse for it, although it is not pleasant to have at your side a gay cavalier one moment and a peevish woman the next.

You never know which may be uppermost.

Yet he performed his full share of toil like a man, and, when not curling his long moustachios, or swearing in provincial French, was mostly what he should be, a careless soldier of fortune, to whom life appealed more as a play than a stern duty.