that you should be forced to join in such a struggle?'

'Ta, ta, ta,' said he. 'I was a soldier before I was an Emperor. Do you
think, then, that artillerymen have not swords as well as the hussars?
But I ordered you not to argue with me. You will do exactly what I tell
you. If swords are once out, neither of these men is to get away alive.'

'They shall not, sire,' said I.

'Very good. I have no more instructions for you. You can go.'

I turned to the door, and then an idea occurring to me I turned.

'I have been thinking, sire--' said I.

He sprang at me with the ferocity of a wild beast. I really thought he
would have struck me.

'Thinking!' he cried. 'You, _you_! Do you imagine I chose you out
because you could think? Let me hear of your doing such a thing again!
You, the one man--but, there! You meet me at the fir-tree at ten
o'clock.'

My faith, I was right glad to get out of the room. If I have a good
horse under me, and a sword clanking against my stirrup-iron, I know
where I am. And in all that relates to green fodder or dry, barley and
oats and rye, and the handling of squadrons upon the march, there is no
one who can teach me very much. But when I meet a Chamberlain and a
Marshal of the Palace, and have to pick my words with an Emperor, and
find that everybody hints instead of talking straight out, I feel like a