Chateauroy tossed off his burgundy with a contemptuous impatience.
“Diable! That is the exaggerated nonsense one always hears about this fellow—as if he were a second Roland, or a revivified Bayard! I see nothing particular in him, except that he's too fine a gentleman for the ranks.”
“Fine? ah!” laughed Cigarette. “He made me bow this morning like a chamberlain; and his beard is like carded silk, and he has such woman's hands, mon Dieu! But he is a croc-mitaine, too.”
“Rather!” laughed Claude de Chanrellon, as magnificent a soldier himself as ever crossed swords. “I said he would eat fire the very minute he played that queer game of dice with me years ago. I wish I had him instead of you, Chateauroy; like lightning in a charge; and yet the very man for a dangerous bit of secret service that wants the softness of a panther. We all let our tongues go too much, but he says so little—just a word here, a word there—when one's wanted—no more; and he's the devil's own to fight.”
The Marquis heard the praise of his Corporal, knitting his heavy brows; it was evident the private was no favorite with him.
“The fellow rides well enough,” he said, with an affectation of carelessness; “there—for what I see—is the end of his marvels. I wish you had him, Claude, with all my soul.”
“Oh, ha!” cried Chanrellon, wiping the Rhenish off his tawny mustaches, “he should have been a captain by this if I had. Morbleu! He is a splendid sabreur—kills as many men to his own sword as I could myself, when it comes to a hand-to-hand fight; breaks horses in like magic; rides them like the wind; has a hawk's eye over open country; obeys like clockwork; what more can you want?”
“Obeys! Yes!” said the Colonel of Chasseurs, with a snarl. “He'd obey without a word if you ordered him to walk up to a cannon's mouth, and be blown from it; but he gives you such a d——d languid grand seigneur glance as he listens that one would think he commanded the regiment.”
“But he's very popular with your men, too?”
“Monsieur, the worst quality a corporal can have. His idea of maintaining discipline is to treat them to cognac and give them tobacco.”