best sideboard, now in full action for dinner, further back on
the same side; the fireplace on the other side, with a couch near
it, and another door, leading to the inner rooms, between it and
the vineyard; and the table in the middle with its repast of
Milanese risotto, cheese, grapes, bread, olives, and a big
wickered flask of red wine.

The landlord, Giuseppe Grandi, is also no novelty. He is a
swarthy, vivacious, shrewdly cheerful, black-curled, bullet
headed, grinning little man of 40. Naturally an excellent host,
he is in quite special spirits this evening at his good fortune
in having the French commander as his guest to protect him
against the license of the troops, and actually sports a pair of
gold earrings which he would otherwise have hidden carefully
under the winepress with his little equipment of silver plate.

Napoleon, sitting facing her on the further side of the table,
and Napoleon's hat, sword and riding whip lying on the couch, she
sees for the first time. He is working hard, partly at his meal,
which he has discovered how to dispatch, by attacking all the
courses simultaneously, in ten minutes (this practice is the
beginning of his downfall), and partly at a map which he is
correcting from memory, occasionally marking the position of the
forces by taking a grapeskin from his mouth and planting it on
the map with his thumb like a wafer. He has a supply of writing
materials before him mixed up in disorder with the dishes and
cruets; and his long hair gets sometimes into the risotto gravy
and sometimes into the ink.

GIUSEPPE. Will your excellency--