"Trooper Decle, come here."
I advanced, turned round to face him, and, as I saluted, what was my horror at discovering that the enterprising old gentleman whose foot had annoyed one of my lady friends in the train on the previous day, and about whom I had passed some rather uncivil remarks, was ... my Major!! The reason I had not recognised him as an officer was that since I had joined the regiment he had been away on leave, and he had only just returned. I stood at "Attention," my heart beating fast, but the old gentleman (his age was perhaps fifty-six or fifty-seven) did not speak a word, but stared at me from head to foot with a look that seemed to pierce me.
"So," he said, after a few minutes' time, "we are one of these Volontaires, one of these dashing Volontaires, who, although they wear a Dragoon uniform, are nothing after all but dirty petits crêvés. We invite painted females, who are nothing but low cocottes, to come and visit us, and we parade them about the streets in a four-horse brake when our officers are content to walk on foot! Trooper Decle," he proceeded in a stern voice, "you are a disgrace to the 50th Dragoons. You have disgraced your uniform by a contact with such creatures, you have disgraced yourself by passing uncalled-for remarks on your betters, and although you are a Volontaire you are a liar, and nothing but a b—— maquereau."
I turned pale under the insult, but as I had determined to keep my temper, I made no reply. This seemed to excite the gradually rising fury of the Major, who had now risen from his chair and was pacing up and down the room livid with rage.
"Why don't you answer?" he cried; "what have you got to say, dirty swine that you are! I suppose you belong to the class of youngsters who are proud to be seen in the company of cocottes, and afterwards leave those ladies to settle the bill for them."
This I confess was too much for me, but still determined to outwardly restrain my temper, I took two steps towards the Major, and crossing my arms on my chest, looked him straight in the eyes.
"I have let you insult me, sir," I said slowly, "in order to see how far you would go. The ladies of whom you have just spoken are, I know, far above your contempt, and it strikes me that if they had cared to accept your senile advances, you would probably have thought them most divine creatures. I need not defend them, they are too well known to require such defence," I continued, mentioning their names.
"As for myself," I went on, "you have accused me of playing the basest part a man can play in this world. It was not through respect for the gold stripes you wear on your sleeve that I kept silent, but through respect for your white hairs. In a few months' time I shall no longer be a Dragoon, and I hope that in a few years I shall be somebody, while you will be—yourself: nothing else but one of the mass of retired Majors whose intelligence and means will limit them to a glass of absinthe, and a game of dominoes before dinner, and the company of a local bailiff, or the constable of their native village. You called me a maquereau just now, and you seem to be so well acquainted with the habits of that class, that I can only conclude that you gained that knowledge personally at a time when nature made you more attractive than you are now."
The Major, who had been too dumbfounded to answer a word so far, turned pale when I uttered those words, and, seizing his riding-whip, which lay on the table, lifted it as though about to strike me, shouting at the same time, in a voice choked with rage, "Misérable!" I wrenched the whip from his hands, and replacing it on the table stood once more at "Attention."
"I will court-martial you," went on the Major; "you shall have ten years for this!"