"Soldiers are coming——"
"Good—we'll give them something to do. Here, friend, we'll get ready for them," he cried, delighted with the new adventure.
At that the gipsies fell to stripping off Thaddeus's soldier clothes, and exchanging them for a gipsy's smock; but as this was taking place, a roll of parchment fell at Devilshoof's feet.
"What's this?" he asked, taking it up.
"It is my commission as a soldier of Poland—the only thing I have of value in the world. I shall never part with it," and Thaddeus snatched it and hid it in his dress and then mixed with the gipsies just as the Emperor's soldiers came up.
"Ho, there! You vagabonds—have you seen anything of a stranger who has passed this way?"
"What—a Polish soldier?"
"That's our man."
"Young?"