houses and chased all the way to the river bank by a disorderly mob of
Austrian Dragoons and Prussian Hussars. The bridge had been mined
early in the morning and his opinion was that the sight of the horsemen
converging from many sides in the pursuit of his person alarmed the
officer in command of the sappers and caused the premature firing of the
charges. He had not gone more than 200 yards on the other side when he
heard the sound of the fatal explosions. Mr. Nicholas B. concluded
his bald narrative with the word "Imbecile" uttered with the utmost
deliberation. It testified to his indignation at the loss of so many
thousands of lives. But his phlegmatic physiognomy lighted up when he
spoke of his only wound, with something resembling satisfaction. You
will see that there was some reason for it when you learn that he was
wounded in the heel. "Like his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon himself,"
he reminded his hearers with assumed indifference. There can be no doubt
that the indifference was assumed, if one thinks what very distinguished
sort of wound it was. In all the history of warfare there are, I
believe, only three warriors publicly known to have been wounded in
the heel--Achilles and Napoleon--demi-gods indeed--to whom the familial
piety of an unworthy descendant adds the name of the simple mortal,
Nicholas B.

The Hundred Days found Mr. Nicholas B. staying with a distant relative
of ours, owner of a small estate in Galicia. How he got there across the
breadth of an armed Europe and after what adventures I am afraid will
never be known now. All his papers were destroyed shortly before his
death; but if there was amongst them, as he affirmed, a concise record
of his life, then I am pretty sure it did not take up more than a
half-sheet of foolscap or so. This relative of ours happened to be
an Austrian officer, who had left the service after the battle of
Austerlitz. Unlike Mr. Nicholas B., who concealed his decorations, he