Césarine made a contemptuous gesture, expressive of the conquest being
too easy.

"Such sallow youth are best left to platonic love, it's more proper,
and to them, quite as entertaining."

"Well, madame," said Hedwig, like a cheap Jack, holding up the last of
his stock, "they are the only men I can offer you; for, since we have
been firing off guns and cannon, our neighbors have moved away right and
left--we are so lonely. No servant would stay a week!"

"Those the only men?" said the returned fugitive; "Hedwig, this is not
polite for your master."

"Oh, madame, a husband never counts."

"You are very much mistaken. He does _count_--his money, I suppose, if
that is his cash-box." And, yielding to her girlish curiosity, she went
over to the steel-plated chest and avariciously contemplated it,

"Not at all, madame. That is where they lock up the writings and
drawings about the new gun!"

"Oh, what do they say?"

"Nothing a Christian can make head or tail of," returned the servant
reservedly. "They write now in a hand no honest folk ever used. An old
man who ought to have known better--the Jew--he taught the master, and
they call it siphon--"