"You do, Your Majesty."
"Am I pale, Le B-?"
"No—no—oh, no, not at all, Sire."
"Tell me the truth, Le B-. We must not let the enemy find us broken when they arrive. How do I look? Out with it."
"Out of sight, Sire!" replied Le B-, bending backward as far as he could, and gazing directly at the ceiling.
"Then bring on your invader, and let us hear the worst," ordered
Napoleon, encouraged by Le B-'s assurances.
A few days later, Bonaparte, having nothing else to do, once more abdicated, and threw himself upon the generosity of the English people.
"I was only fooling, anyhow," he said, with a sad smile. "If you hadn't sent me to Elba I wouldn't have come back. As for the fighting, you all said I was outside of the pale of civilization, and I had to fight. I didn't care much about getting back into the pail, but I really objected to having it said that I was in the tureen."
This jest completely won the hearts of the English who were used to just such humor, who loved it, and who, many years later, showed that love by the establishment of a comic journal as an asylum for bon- mots similarly afflicted. The result was, not death, but a new Empire, the Island of St. Helena.
"This," said Wellington, "will serve to make his jokes more far- fetched than ever; so that by sending him there we shall not only be gracious to a fallen foe, but add to the gayety of our nation."