So they talked, one after another. I thought to myself: "Say what you like, you will not make me think that you are twenty years old, or that you are handsome."
But I kept silence.
Suddenly the governor, who was talking with the mayor in a corner, turned around, with his great chapeau awry, and looking at me, said:
"What do you intend to do with such a patriarch? You see very well that he can hardly stand."
I was pleased, in spite of it all, and began to cough.
"Good, good!" said he, "you may go home; take care of your cold!"
I had taken four steps toward the door, when Frichard, the secretary of the mayoralty, called out:
"It is Moses! The Jew Moses, colonel, who has sent his two boys off to America! The oldest should be in the service."
This wretch of a Frichard had a grudge against me, because we had the same business of selling old clothes under the market, and the country people almost always preferred buying of me; he had a mortal grudge against me, and that is why he began to inform against me.
The governor exclaimed at once: "Stop a minute! Ah ha, old fox! You send your boys to America to escape conscription! Very well! Give him his musket, cartridge-box, and sabre."