CAPT. G. How do you mean?

MRS. G. What does all that mean? Why am I not to be told? Is it
so precious?

CAPT. G. I forget its exact Government value just at present. It
means that it is a great deal too heavy.

MRS. G. Then why do you touch it?

CAPT. G. To make it lighter. See here, little love, I've one notion
and Jack has another, but we are both agreed that all this
equipment is about thirty pounds too heavy. The thing is how to
cut it down without weakening any part of it, and, at the same
time, allowing the trooper to carry everything he wants for his own
comfort-socks and shirts and things of that kind.

MRS. G. Why doesn't he pack them in a little trunk?

CAPT. G. (Kissing her.) Oh, you darling! Pack them in a little
trunk, indeed! Hussars don't carry trunks, and it's a most important
thing to make the horse do all the carrying.

MRS. G. But why need you bother about it? You're not a trooper.

CAPT. G. No; but I command a few score of him; and equipment
is nearly everything in these days.

MRS. G. More than me?