‘It was one they gave me in the Temple,’ said I. ‘I was a rat du prison for some time.’
‘Thunder of war!’ exclaimed the cannonier, ‘I had rather stand a whole platoon-fire than see what thou must have seen, child.’
‘And hast heart to go back there, boy,’ said the corporal, ‘and live the same life again?’
‘No, I ‘ll never go back,’ said I. ‘I ‘ll be a soldier.’
‘Well said, mon brave—thou’lt be a hussar, I know.’
‘If nature has given thee a good head, and a quick eye, my boy, thou might even do better, and in time, perhaps, wear a coat like mine,’ said the cannonier.
‘Sacrebleu! cried a little fellow, whose age might have been anything from boyhood to manhood—for while small of stature, he was shrivelled and wrinkled like a mummy—‘why not be satisfied with the coat he wears?’
‘And be a drummer, like thee?’ said the cannonier.
‘Just so, like me, and like Masséna—he was a drummer, too.’
‘No, no!’ cried a dozen voices together; ‘that’s not true.’