“I desire nothing but to serve my time out and return home.”
“But who calls you there, if, as you say, you have no one?” questioned she.
“Love for my native place,” he answered. “God give me rest in the soil that gave me birth!”
“Valiant goose!” exclaimed the general.
Lucas neither opened his lips nor moved an eyelid.
“Dearest brother! by our mother’s memory, don’t make as if you did not know me! You break my heart! Stay here.”
“It would not suit me to be a stranger anywhere, madam.”
“Enough!” said the general. “Let
the clown go, he will think better of it.”
“I do not think twice of things,” replied Lucas, saluting as he went out.