In reply he received their earnest congratulations upon his escape from the frightful dangers of our journey.
These formalities concluded, casting off the iron discipline of war, we descended a joyous mob, or rather the Abati did, to partake of the delights of peace.

Really, conquerors returning from some desperate adventure could not have been more warmly greeted.

As we entered the suburbs of the town, women, some of them very handsome, ran out and embraced their lords or lovers, holding up babies for them to kiss, and a little farther on children appeared, throwing roses and pomegranate flowers before their triumphant feet.

And all this because these gallant men had ridden to the bottom of a pass and back again! "Heavens! Doctor," exclaimed the sardonic Quick, after taking note of these demonstrations, "Heavens! what a hero I feel myself to be.

And to think that when I got back from the war with them Boers, after being left for dead on Spion Kop with a bullet through my lung and mentioned in a dispatch--yes, I, Sergeant Quick, mentioned in a dispatch by the biggest ass of a general as ever I clapped eyes on, for a job that I won't detail, no one in my native village ever took no note of me, although I had written to the parish clerk, who happens to be my brother-in-law, and told him the train I was coming by.