It was a curious medley at the table d'hote, at the Hotel de Bordeaux. Generals, with their breasts covered with orders, and simple franc tireurs; officers, of every arm of the service; ministers and members of the late Corps Legislatif; an American gentleman, with his family; English newspaper correspondents; army contractors; and families, refugees from Paris. After dinner they went to a cafe--literally crowded with officers--and thence to Colonel Tempe's rooms, where they sat down quietly, to chat over what had taken place since the last visit.
"But where is your Irishman? Your father told me he was with you. I suppose you could not get him out."
"Oh yes, Tim's here," Ralph said, laughing, "but he ran across a couple of Irishmen belonging to the foreign legion and--as he would have been in our way, and we did not know where we were going to sleep--we gave him leave till to-morrow morning, when he is to meet us in front of the railway station."
"By the way, boys, I suppose you know you have each got a step?"
"No," the boys cried. "Really?"
"Yes, really," the colonel said. "That good fellow, Cambriels, sent in a strong report in your favor upon resigning his command; rehearsing what you did with us, and requesting that the step might be at once given to you. As a matter of course it was, in the next Gazette."
"Of course, we feel pleased, colonel; but it seems absurd, so young as we are. Why, if we go on like this, in another six months we may be majors."
"In ordinary times it would be absurd, lads; and it would not be possible for you to hold the grade you do now--still less higher ones--unless you understood thoroughly your duty. At the present moment, everything is exceptional. A man who, perhaps, only served a few months in the army, years ago, is made a general, and sent to organize a camp of new levies. Of course, he could not command these troops in the field, could not even drill them on the parade ground. But that is of no matter. He has a talent for organization, and therefore is selected to organize the camp and, to enable him to do so efficiently, he receives the nominal rank of general.
"In ordinary times a man could not get promoted--three or even four times, in as many weeks--over the heads of hundreds of others, without causing an immense amount of jealousy; without, in fact, upsetting the whole traditions of the army.
"Now, it is altogether different. The officers of the regular army are almost all prisoners. Everyone is new, everyone is unaccustomed to his work; and men who show themselves to be good men can be rewarded and promoted with exceptional rapidity, without exciting any feeling of jealousy, whatever. Besides which, the whole thing is provisional. When the war is over, everyone will either go back into private life or, if they continue to serve, will be gazetted into the regular army, according to some scale or other to be hereafter determined upon. Some inconveniences no doubt will arise, but they will hardly be serious.