An old grenadier, who had made the campaigns of Italy and Egypt, not hearing his name called, came up, and in a calm tone of voice asked for the cross.
"But," said Napoleon, "what have you done to deserve it?"
"It was I, sir, who, in the desert of Joppa, when it was so terribly hot, gave you a watermelon!"
"I thank you for it again," said the Emperor, "but the gift of the fruit is hardly worth the cross of the Legion of Honor." Then the grenadier, who up till then had been as cool as ice, working himself up into a frenzy, shouted at the top of his voice, "Well, and don't you reckon seven wounds received at the bridge of Arcola, at Lodi, at Castiglione, at the Pyramids, at Acre, Austerlitz, Friedland; eleven campaigns in Italy, Egypt, Austria, Prussia, Poland—."
But the Emperor cut him short laughing, and mimicking his excited manner, cried;—"There, there, how you work yourself up when you come to the essential point! That is where you ought to have begun; it is worth much more than your melon. I make you a Knight of the Empire, with a pension of 1200 francs. Does that satisfy you?"
"But your Majesty, I prefer the cross."
"You have both one and the other since I make you a Knight."
From a Drawing by L. Marin