Page:Precaution; a novel by Cooper, James Fenimore.djvu/358

346 the veterans, who, for a miracle, had agreed ia their rival stations, and in doubtful moments of success, were near splitting on the point of marrying a girl of nineteen.

As Sir Peter both loved his friend, and had taken a prodigious fancy to the youth, he however was fain to submit to a short probation.

"You are always for going a roundabout way to do a thing," said the admiral, as he yielded the point. "Now, when you took that battery, had you gone up in front, as I advised you, you would have taken it in ten minutes, instead of five hours."

"Yes," said the other, with a friendly shake of the hand parting, "and lost fifty men in place of one by the step."