"Yes," said Blucher, smiling, "if that could be done, I should like to be counted in."
"It can be done, general; every honest man says so, and it ought to be, for the French are behaving too shamefully. They must be expelled from Germany. Well, then, my Christian wishes to assist you in doing so; he wishes to become a soldier, and help you to drive out the French."
"Alas, he must apply to some one else if he wishes to do that," said Blucher, mournfully. "I cannot help him, for they have pensioned me. I have no regiments. I—but, thunder and lightning! what is the matter with my pipe today? The thing will not burn." And he put his little finger into the bowl, and tried to smoke again.
"The pipe does not draw well, because it was not skilfully filled," said Christian. "I know it was badly filled."
"Ay?" asked Blucher. "What do you know? John has been filling my pipes for four years past."
"John has done it very poorly," said Christian, composedly. "To fill such a clay pipe is an art with which a good many are not familiar, and when it is smoked for the first time it does not burn very well. It ought first to be smoked by some one, and John ought to have done so yesterday if the general wished to use his pipe to-day."
"Why, he knows something about a clay pipe," exclaimed Blucher, "and he is right; it always tastes better on the second day than on the first."
"That is the reason why the second day always ought to be the first for General Blucher," said Christian.
"He is right," exclaimed Blucher, laughing, "it would surely be better if the second were always the first day. Well, I know now what is to be made of Christian; he is to become my pipe-master."
"Pipe-master?" asked old Hennemann and Christian at the same time.
"Pipe-master, what is that?"