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The Novels and Miscellaneous Works (5); Colonel Jack. Apparition of Mrs. Veal
The Novels and Miscellaneous Works Colonel Jack Apparition of Mrs Veal - 5 Author:Daniel Defoe Volume: 5 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1840 Original Publisher: Printed by D. A. Talboys for T. Tegg, London Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial a... more »ccess to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: I was provoked at having this boy called captain, and I cried, and told my nurse I would be called captain ; for she told me I was a gentleman, and I would be a captain, that I would: the good woman, to keep the peace, told me, ay, ay, I was a gentleman, and therefore I should be above a captain, for I should be a colonel, and that was a great deal better than a captain; for, my dear, says she, every tarpawling, if he gets but to be lieutenant of a press smack, is called captain, but colonels are soldiers, and none but gentlemen are ever made colonels: besides, says she, I have known colonels come to be lords, and generals, though they were bastards at first, and therefore you shall be called Colonel. Well, I was hushed indeed with this for the present, but not thoroughly pleased, till a little while after I heard her tell her own boy, that I was a gentleman, and therefore he must call me colonel; at which her boy fell a crying, and he would be called colonel. That part pleased me to the life, that he should cry to be called colonel, for then I was satisfied that it was above a captain: so universally is ambition seated in the minds of men, that not a beggar-boy but has his share of it. So here was colonel Jack, and captain Jack; as for the third boy, he was only plain Jack for some years after, till he came to preferment by the merit of his birth, as you shall hear in its place. We were hopeful boys all three of us, and promised very early, by many repeated circumstances of our lives, that we would all be rogues ; and yet I ...« less