‘To join your expedition, general.’
‘Have they told you it was a holiday-party that we had planned? Did they say it was a junketing we were bent upon?’
‘If they had, sir, I would not have come.’
‘The greater fool you, then, that’s all,’ cried he, laughing; ‘when I was your age I’d not have hesitated twice between a merry-making and a bayonet charge.’
While he was thus speaking, he never ceased to sign his name to every paper placed before him by one or other of the secretaries.
‘No, parbleu! he went on, ‘La maîtresse before the mitraille any day for me. But what’s all this, Girard? Here I’m issuing orders upon the national treasury for hundreds of thousands without let or compunction.’
The aide-de-camp whispered a word or two in a low tone.
‘I know it, lad; I know it well,’ said the general, laughing heartily; ‘I only pray that all our requisitions may be as easily obtained in future.—Well, Monsieur le Guide, what are we to do with you?’
‘Not refuse me, I hope, general,’ said I diffidently.
‘Not refuse you, certainly; but in what capacity to take you, lad, that’s the question. If you had served—if you had even walked a campaign——’