“Yes; that’s true. I guess men would be a little better to shed tears now and again. Well, lad, I hope no woman will ever have to cry because your body has been made a target of. I hope, too, that you’ll never be stood up and have an awful moment when you wonder what in the name of common-sense you have done, or your ancestors have done, that you shouldn’t be allowed to live out this life, which is tricky anyway, but should be set up for a plaything, not for butchers, but for decent human beings, that haven’t the faintest bit of spite against you. But good gracious, I’m preaching a sermon, which is always against my principles.”
“I like to talk of war,” said Eugene; “it makes me feel warm. You have of course read of Napoleon and his glorious campaigns?”
The sergeant nodded. Eugene had turned his back to the window, and sat confronting him with flaming cheeks. He had forgotten the very existence of the cats.
“He was the greatest soldier the world has ever seen,” pursued the lad.
“Well, granted he was,” said the sergeant, “what did he get out of it?”
“Glory, honor, victory, and reputation for France.”
“And a lonely prison without a razor to shave his upper lip, according to you,” said the sergeant, “though I think you are rather hard on England in that.”
“At the last, yes,” said Eugene; ”but his career up to that was magnificent.”
“I don’t see the magnificence of it,” said the sergeant. “He set all Europe by the ears; he stirred up the kings and emperors; he turned things topsy-turvy, and in the end left France no better than he found her. His ambition was too big for his little body. He should have stopped half way in his course.”
“You do not understand,” said Eugene impatiently.