“He is called Monsieur le Comte Eugène Claude Louis Hernando de Vargas, formerly seigneur of the château of Châtillon-sur-Loir in the department of Loir-et-Cher in France; and he is descended from the Spaniard Hernando de Vargas, who was ennobled and made a marshal of France by the great Napoleon.”
“Oh!” said the sergeant, “I see why you’re so stuffy; and where does your grandfather live in this democratic city of Boston?”
“Yonder,” said the boy, with a wave of his hand toward the south. “We have but small quarters. My grandfather is embarrassed in his affairs. I may tell you as an official, though I would never tell the schoolboys, that he was sentenced to banishment for conspiring against the abominable so-called republic of France.”
“Abominable and republic,” repeated the sergeant remonstratingly; “come, boy, that’s not grateful. Do you forget that a republican flag is waving over you at this present moment?”
“For you it is well,” said the boy earnestly. “You are true to the past. You defied England, who would have made slaves of you. Also, you have had no emperor.”
“Did you ever hear of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln?” asked the sergeant.
“The names of those gentlemen are quite unknown to me,” said Eugene politely.
“You don’t mean to say that you have never heard of that wonderful hatchet?”
“Whose hatchet, Mr. Officer?”
“George Washington’s.”