of women with the soldiers. He immediately ordered the two captains to be
put under arrest, intending to have them tried for a breach of duty. The
prisoners protested their innocence, and stoutly asserted that no women had
crossed the bridge. Napoleon, on hearing this, commanded that some of the
women should be brought before him, when he interrogated them on the
subject. To his utter surprise they readily acknowledged that the captains
had not betrayed their trust, but that a contrivance of their own had
brought them into their present situation. They informed Napoleon, that
having taken the provisions, which had been prepared for the support of the
army, out of some of the casks, they had concealed themselves in them, and
by this stratagem succeeded in passing the bridge without discovery.




ARTISTS.


Sir Joshua Reynolds.--"What do you ask for this sketch?" said Sir Joshua to
an old picture-dealer, whose portfolio he was looking over. "Twenty
guineas, your honour." "Twenty pence, I suppose you mean?" "No, sir; it is
true I would have taken twenty pence for it this morning, but if _you_
think it worth looking at, all the world will think it worth buying." Sir
Joshua ordered him to send the sketch home, and gave him the money.


Ditto.--Two gentlemen were at a coffee-house, when the discourse fell upon
Sir Joshua Reynold's painting; one of them said that "his tints were
admirable, but the colours _flew_." It happened that Sir Joshua was in the
next box, who taking up his hat, accosted them thus, with a low