"Ho, ho! Straw-nose!" the spy cried out; "and what is the baby doing?
Is it playing with the pretty pebbles? Is it making mud-pies? It was a
sweet child, so it was."

Napoleon flushed with anger, enraged both at the intrusion and the
teasing.

"Pig! imbecile!" he cried; "get down from my hedge, or I will make you!"

"Ho! hear the infant!" came back the taunting answer. "He will make
me--this pretty Corsican baby who plays with pebbles. He will make me!
That is good! I laugh; I--Oh, help! help! the Corsican has killed me!"

[Illustration: "_'Get down from my hedge' cried Napoleon_"]

For a moment Napoleon thought indeed he had; for a moment, too, I am
afraid, he did not care. For so enraged was he at the boy's insults and
actions, that he had caught up his biggest pebble, which happened to
be Napoleon the general, and flung it at the intruder. It struck him
squarely between the eyes, and so stunned him that he fell back from the
hedge, and lay, first howling, and then terribly quiet, in the space
outside Napoleon's garden. At once there was a hue and cry; Napoleon was
summoned from his retreat, and dragged before his teacher.

"Ah, miserable one!" cried the master. "And is it you again? You have
perhaps killed your fellow-student. You will yet end in the Bastille, or
on the block. Take him away, until we see what shall be the result of
the last ill-doing of this wicked one."

"When one plays the spy and the bully one must expect retribution," said