“To General Danitan, sir.”
“Give it me,” said he, half snatching it from me.
He tore it hastily open and read it, occasionally looking from the paper to myself, as he went on. He then leaned over the table where the secretary sat, and, showed him the letter. They conversed eagerly for some seconds together, and then the general said,—
“Your friends have recommended you for a post in the 'chancellerie militaire': is that your liking, lad?”
“I should be proud to think myself capable of doing anything for my own support,” was my answer.
“D'Artans, see to him; let him be enrolled as a supernumerary, and lodged with the others.—This gentleman will instruct you in your duty,” added he to me, while, with a slight nod towards the door, he motioned me to withdraw.
I retired at once to the antechamber, where I sat down to think over my future prospects, and canvass in my mind my strange situation.
Troops of officers in full and half dress, orderlies with despatches, aides-de-camp in hot haste, came and went through that room for hours; and yet there I sat, unnoticed and unrecognized by any, till I began to feel in my isolation a sense of desertion and loneliness I had never known before.
It was already evening when D'Artans joined me, and taking my arm familiarly within his own, said,—
“Come along, Jasper, and let us dine together.”