“Not yet, Serge. This is a gentleman, a traveller from Rome, who is sitting down to rest.”
Serge drew himself up with a soldierly salute, which was received with dignity, and, as eyes met, the stranger looked the old warrior through and through, while Serge seemed puzzled and suspicious, as he slowly raised his hand and rubbed his head.
“Yes,” said the visitor, “your young master has been playing the kindly host to a weary man. Why do you look at me so hard? You know my face?”
“No,” said Serge, gruffly; “no. But I think I have seen someone like you before.”
“And I,” said the visitor, “have seen many such like you, but few who bear such a character as your young master gives.”
“Eh?” cried Serge, sharply. “Why, what’s he been saying about me?”
“Told me what a brave old soldier you have been.”
“Oh! Oh! Stuff!” growled Serge, sourly.
“And of how carefully you have taught him the duties of a soldier, and told him all about the war.”
“There!” cried Serge, angrily, stepping forward to bring his big, hairy fist down upon the table with a thump. “I don’t know you, or who you are, but you have come here tired, and been given refreshment and rest, and, instead of being thankful, you have been putting all sorts of things in this boy’s head again that he ought to have forgot.”