"Good. Good. You saw the lady quite frequently?"

"Yes, she visited me twice more, and told me about the queen, and
the splendid way they lived at the court; she promised me that she
would bring me to the court and make a great lady out of me, if I
would do what she wanted me to do. I promised it gladly, and
declared myself ready to do every thing that she should order me, if
she would keep her promise and bring me to the court, that I might
speak with the king and the queen."

"But why were you so curious to go to the court and speak with the
king and the queen?"

"Why? Good Lord! that is very simple and natural. It is a very easy
thing for the king to make a captain out of a sergeant, and as the
king, so people say, does nothing but what the queen tells him to, I
wanted of course before every thing to have a good word from the
queen. I should have liked to see my dear George wearing epaulets,
and it must have tremendously pleased my boy to have come into the
world the child of a captain."

"Did you tell that to the lady?"

"Certainly I told her, and she promised me that the queen would
undoubtedly do me the favor, provided that I would do every thing
that she bade me do in the name of the queen. She told me, then,
that the queen had ordered her to seek a person suitable to play a
part in a little comedy, which she was privately preparing; that I
was just the person to play this part, and if I would do it well and
tell nobody in the world, not even George, when he should come home