Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

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I bade Ghorumsaug help me to put away my chest of treasure (my exultation in taking it
was so great that I could not help informing him of its contents); and this done, I
despatched him to his post near the prisoner, while I prepared to sally forth and pay my
respects to the fair creatures under my protection. "What good after all have I done,"
thought I to myself, "in this expedition which I had so rashly undertaken?" I had seen the
renowned Holkar, I had been in the heart of his camp; I knew the disposition of his troops,
that there were eleven thousand of them, and that he only waited for his guns to make a
regular attack on the fort. I had seen Puttee Rooge; I had robbed her (I say ROBBED her,
and I don't care what the reader or any other man may think of the act) of a deal box,
containing jewels to the amount of three millions sterling, the property of herself and
husband.
Three millions in money and jewels! And what the deuce were money and jewels to me or
to my poor garrison? Could my adorable Miss Bulcher eat a fricassee of diamonds, or,
Cleopatra-like, melt down pearls to her tea? Could I, careless as I am about food, with a
stomach that would digest anything—(once, in Spain, I ate the leg of a horse during a
famine, and was so eager to swallow this morsel that I bolted the shoe, as well as the hoof,
and never felt the slightest inconvenience from either,)—could I, I say, expect to live long
and well upon a ragout of rupees, or a dish of stewed emeralds and rubies? With all the
wealth of Croesus before me I felt melancholy; and would have paid cheerfully its weight
in carats for a good honest round of boiled beef. Wealth, wealth, what art thou? What is
gold?—Soft metal. What are diamonds?—Shining tinsel. The great wealth-winners, the
only fame-achievers, the sole objects worthy of a soldier's consideration, are beefsteaks,
gunpowder, and cold iron.
The two latter means of competency we possessed; I had in my own apartments a small
store of gunpowder (keeping it under my own bed, with a candle burning for fear of
accidents); I had 14 pieces of artillery (4 long 48's and 4 carronades, 5 howitzers, and a
long brass mortar, for grape, which I had taken myself at the battle of Assaye), and muskets
for ten times my force. My garrison, as I have told the reader in a previous number,
consisted of 40 men, two chaplains, and a surgeon; add to these my guests, 83 in number,
of whom nine only were gentlemen (in tights, powder, pigtails, and silk stockings, who had
come out merely for a dance, and found themselves in for a siege). Such were our
numbers:—
Ladies 74
Troops and artillerymen 40
Other non-combatants 11
MAJOR-GEN. O'G. GAHAGAN 1000
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