Clemenceau shook his head. Only the day before, the young man had called himself the happiest soul in the world and did not wish to quit tranquil Montmorency.
"Well, after you have had your fling, would you hasten back?"
"I—I fear not, master," said he. "I daresay if you and M. Daniels should approve, I might have a situation to travel for the Clemenceau Rifle Company, for some months, in England or America—and explain the value of your invention."
"You wish to be my trumpeter, eh?" said the Frenchman, sadly smiling. "But what is to become of me during your absence and of M. Daniels? Remember that I have nobody to understand me, sympathize with me, become endeared to me, and aid me!"
"I, alone?" repeated the Italian, affected by the melancholy tone common to the man of one idea who must, to concentrate his thoughts, set aside other ties of union with his race.
"Do you doubt it?"
Antonino felt no doubt. He would be the most to be deplored among men if he were not fond of Clemenceau after all that he had done for him. He was an orphan vagrant, next to a beggar, when he had been housed by him, kept, and highly educated. Then, too, with a frankness not common among born brothers, the Frenchman had associated him in all his labors for the revolution in the science of artillery—the greatest since Bacon discovered gunpowder. All that he was, he owed to the man before him.
"Believe me, father," he said, earnestly, "I esteem and venerate you!"
"And yet you keep secrets from me!" reproached Clemenceau.
"I—I have no secrets."