'A prince to live and die under' was Waverley's enthusiastic answer.
'I knew you would think so when you saw him, and I intended you should
have met earlier, but was prevented by your sprain. And yet he has his
foibles, or rather he has difficult cards to play, and his Irish
officers, [Footnote: See Note 30.] who are much about him, are but sorry
advisers: they cannot discriminate among the numerous pretensions that
are set up. Would you think it--I have been obliged for the present to
suppress an earl's patent, granted for services rendered ten years ago,
for fear of exciting the jealousy, forsooth, of C----and M----? But you
were very right, Edward, to refuse the situation of aide-de-camp. There
are two vacant, indeed, but Clanronald and Lochiel, and almost all of us,
have requested one for young Aberchallader, and the Lowlanders and the
Irish party are equally desirous to have the other for the master of F--.
Now, if either of these candidates were to be superseded in your favour,
you would make enemies. And then I am surprised that the Prince should
have offered you a majority, when he knows very well that nothing short
of lieutenant-colonel will satisfy others, who cannot bring one hundred
and fifty men to the field.
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