“Of course it couldn't be binding, but of course nothing of the sort was done. You were engaged, as I understand, as a groom.” Hinge assented. “You happened to be engaged by a gentleman who was an officer in a foreign army. You don't suppose that an officer makes it his business to swear in all his civilian servants, do you?”
“Why, no, sir,” Hinge admitted. “But it was a foreign country, and a lot of things was said to me as I didn't understand no more than the babe unborn.”
“You may make your mind quite easy on that score, Hinge. You are not in any way bound to the Austrian service. But what difference can that possibly make to you now?”
“Why, sir,” said Hinge, scratching his head again, “I've lived among them Austrians, and I don't like 'em. I'm for Italy, I am. I used to think, sir, as the Italians was a organ-grinding class of people as a body, and I never had much respect for 'em. But I've seen a lot in six months, sir, and I've learned a bit, if I may make so bold as to say so. There's the count, now, sir; anybody can see as he's a gentleman. Why, if you'll believe me, sir, I've never seen a gentleman as was more a gentleman than the count. But, bless your heart, sir, you'd never have thought so if you'd a known him all the years as I did, off and on, a-living worse than a wild beast behind a muck-heap, and in a cellar underneath the stables. Now you know, sir,” proceeded Hinge, growing warm and even angry with the theme, “that ain't civilized; it ain't Christian; it ain't treating a man as if you was a man yourself. Because a gentleman goes and fights for his country—that's a natural thing to do, ain't it?—they keep him dirtier and darker and 'orribler than any wild beast I ever see, for twenty years, and would have kept him all his miserable life, sir. I used to get that 'ot about it when I found it out I used to feel as if I was ready to do murder. I did, indeed, sir. And yet I can appeal to you, sir, and ask you fair and square, between an officer and his servant, if I am not a civil spoken person, as a rule. I believe I am, sir, and yet I used to feel as if it 'd do me good, every now and then, to go out and shoot a Austrian.”
“I suppose,” I said, “that the upshot of all this is that when I go to Italy you want to go with me.”
“That's it, sir,” Hinge returned, delightedly. “If I'm only free, sir, if I was engaged in nothing but a civil capacity—”
“You are quite free to go,” I told him; “and I had thoroughly made up my mind to take you with me, supposing always that you were willing to be taken.”
“I'm more than willing, sir,” Hinge responded. “I should like to hear 'Boot and saddle' again, sir; so would you, I am sure.”
I had never heard Hinge break out like this before, and the good fellow's enthusiasm and right-thinking pleased me, and as I went on dressing I kept, him talking.
“I should think, sir,” he said, and he was about me all the while in his usual handy and unobtrusive fashion—“I should think, sir, as anybody as knowed the count 'd be glad to fight on his side. It makes you want to fight for a gentleman like that as has gone through so much. And if you'll excuse me telling you, sir, what makes me so pertickler glad to go—”