Corsican a soldier for our standard.

"Thirdly, the Corsicans are a touchy race, whom it would be impolitic
to offend with a show of foreign strength.

"Fourthly, we must look a little beyond the immediate enterprise, and
not (if we can help it) saddle Prosper's kingdom with a standing
army. For, as Bacon advises, that state stands in danger whose
warriors remain in a body and are used to donatives; whereof we see
examples in the turk's Janissaries and the Pretorian Bands of Rome.

"And fifthly, we have neither the time nor the money to collect a
stronger force. The occasion presses: and _fronte capillata est,
post haec Occasio calva_. Time turns a bald head to us if we miss
our moment to catch him by the forelock."

"The Abantes," put in Mr. Grylls, "practised the direct contrary: of
whom Homer tells us that they shaved the forepart of their heads, the
reason being that their enemies might not grip them by the hair in
close fighting. I regret, my dear Sir John, you never warned me that
you designed Prosper for a military career. We might have bestowed
more attention on the warlike customs and operations of the
ancients."

My father sipped his wine and regarded the Vicar benevolently.
For closest friends he had two of the most irrelevant thinkers on
earth and he delighted to distinguish between their irrelevancies.

"But I would not," he continued, "have you doubt that the prime cause
of our expedition is to deliver my lady from the Genoese; or believe