"I crave your pardon, Colonel! I reared the horse myself from a colt. I have ridden it for ten years, and it comes at my whistle. By every right it belongs to me. I would rather a bullet hit me than lose the good brute."
"Well, take it."
Even now the hussar did not seem satisfied.
"Colonel! can I go back to my regiment in this scandalous manner?—without my sabre? I shall have to run the gauntlet; they will think I have sold it for drink."
"It shall be restored to you." The General made sign to his orderly; the hussar saluted, and turned to depart. But at the door he once more paused, and gazed pathetically at his former chief.
"Colonel!" he said, in the most insinuating tone he could command.
"Well?"
"Colonel—come over to us!"
And with a bound he was out of the room, feeling well enough that he had said something extraordinarily stupid, but which he could not help saying though it had cost him his head.
When horse and sabre were restored to him, one of the General's grooms, a mischievous fellow, trod on the hussar's spur, breaking the rowel, and then sprang aside laughing.