"Don't fret, my little sister. The spectacle will be better than you think. There will be a shooting-to-death shortly."
"A shooting-to-death! Oh! that will be nice! And who is going to be shot?"
"A soldier, my little sister."
"And you'll have to shoot him, perhaps, eh?"
"It is quite possible, my little sister."
"Oh, Mr. Soldier, that's too bad!"
The snub-nosed wench made haste to quit a room in which stood a man heartless enough to shoot down his living fellow-man, and outside in the kitchen she had a long discussion with the cook about it, and they came to the conclusion that it must be a very fine entertainment to see a man shot right through the head. First there would be the getting up early, for such spectacles generally take place at dawn, and it would never do to sleep away such an opportunity as that, especially as it was just as likely as not that the poor devil would be placed in the pillory first. What could he have been doing? But suppose they were to pardon him? Oh, no! no chance of that, for the General never pardons anybody; even if it were his own son he would not pardon him if he were found guilty, for he was "the iron man."
Meanwhile, inside there, "the iron man" is sitting in his wife's room on a small embroidered armless chair. Opposite to him on a large elevated divan lies his wife, a tiny, elegant, transparent little lady, with a face of alabaster, and wee wee hands which a child of two would not have known what to do with if they had been doled out to her. Her small strawberry-like mouth scarcely seemed to have been made for talking purposes; all the more eloquent, on the other hand, were her large dark-blue eyes, which were saying at that moment that those who can love are very, very happy.
The iron man was sitting in front of her with his elbows planted on his knees and both his hands stretched forwards. Extended on these two hands of his was a skein of thread, which the elegant little woman was winding with great rapidity.