"Look here," he said at length, "the Duke of Ragusa is a fine figure of a man."
"Notoriously," said I. "All Europe knows it, and he certainly knows it himself."
"I have heard that his troops take him at his own valuation."
"Well," I answered, "he sits his horse gallantly; he has courage. At present he is only beginning to make his mistakes; and soldiers, like women, have a great idea of what a warrior ought to look like."
"In fact," said General Trant, "the loss of him would make an almighty difference."
Now he had asked me to be seated and had poured me out a glass of wine from his decanter. But at these words I leapt up suddenly, jolting the table so that the glass danced and spilled half its contents.
"What the dickens is wrong?" asked the general, snatching a map out of the way of the liquor. "Good Lord, man! You don't suppose I was asking you to assassinate Marmont!"
"I beg your pardon," said I, recovering myself. "Of course not; but it sounded—"
"Oh, did it?" He mopped the map with his pocket handkerchief and looked at me as who should say "Guess again."
I cast about wildly. "This man cannot be wanting to kidnap him!" thought I to myself.