“Go after him, Amédée,” said another; “you had no right to say that.”
“Not I, faith,” said the other, carelessly. “There is a grudge between us these three weeks past, and we may as well have it out. Go on with the letter, Henri.”
“Oh, it is filled with Court gossip,” said the reader, negligently. “Ha! what is this, though?—the postscript:—
“'I have just time to tell you the strangest bit of news we have chanced upon for some time past. The Emperor has this moment married old General d'Auvergne to the very handsomest girl in the Empress's suite,—Mademoiselle de Meudon. There is a rumor afloat about the old man having made her his heir, and desiring to confer her hand on some young fellow of his own choosing. But this passion to make Court matches, which has seized his Majesty lately, stops at nothing; and it is whispered that old Madame d'Orvalle is actually terrified at every levee lest she should be disposed of to one of the new marshals. I must say that the general looks considerably put out by the arrangement,—not unnaturally, perhaps, as he is likely to pass the honeymoon in the field; while his aide-de-camp, a certain Monsieur Burke, whose name you may remember figuring in the affair of Pichegru and George—'”
“Perhaps it were as well, sir,” said I, quietly, “that I should tell you the person alluded to is myself. I have no desire to learn how your correspondent speaks of me; nor, I take it for granted, do these gentlemen desire to canvass me in my own hearing. With your leave, then, I shall withdraw.”
“A word. Monsieur; one word, first,” said the officer, whose insolent taunt had already offended the veteran major. “We are most of us here staff-officers, and I need not say accustomed to live pretty much together. Will you favor us, then, with a little explanation as to the manner in which you escaped a trial in that business. Your name, if I mistake not, did not figure before the tribunal after the first day?”
“Well, sir; and then?”
“And then? Why, there is one only explanation in such a circumstance.”
“And that is? if I may be so bold—”
“That the mouchard fares better than his victim.”