Nigel looked at Sergeant Blick with a good deal of interest. He had looked at him before, as he had looked at interminable ranks of soldiers, and had never observed that in Blick, as in himself, although Blick knew no reading or writing, grew the stubborn thistle of ambition. He also remembered a dozen instances of good sergeantry which Blick had displayed. It dawned upon his mind that, as it takes years to make a good ploughman, so it takes years to produce the good sergeant; and that without good sergeants it is impossible to make good regiments.
Sergeant Blick, despite his words, stood stiffly at attention, awaiting the settlement of his destiny. There were at least two scars on his face, which were an abiding proof that he had faced both pike and sword, and his complexion, originally fair (he was a North German from Münster), had been tanned and weather-beaten. The light-blue eyes, somewhat hard in the glint, were full of resolution and vigour, if the cheeks and the mouth did smack somewhat of the beer-can, as did the great girth of his waist, hardly counterbalanced by the greater girth of his shoulders.
"Sergeant is it? You can have it! You begin to-morrow; and keep all the corporals sober till we are ready to start, four days from now."
"Four days! The devil himself couldn't bring that mob of wild Zigeuners and half-cooked hinds into the likeness of a regiment in four days."
"Nevertheless it must be done!" said Nigel.
The new sergeant grunted some guttural remarks, which Nigel took in good part, as they were hurled less at himself than at things in general, which, as every one knows, are always deserving of the extreme of objurgation. Then the sergeant paused.
"Well? You want something else?"
"Yes, colonel! This little bodkin that the lady at Magdeburg tried to push through your steel cap! I tried to bargain with a dirty Jew for a crown or so. He said it was good silver, but he asked how I came by it. I hit him a buffet, but he only snarled that neither he nor any other dealer in Vienna would buy it because of something or other, arms or what not, on the hilt."
"Oh! Let me look at it! So! It is a curious device. Well, I'll give you a crown for it. At all events I have a good right to it if any one has. The point was meant for my head."
Sergeant Blick took his crown with thanks, saluted, and went out. To realise one's ambition and a crown, albeit a silver one, in the same half-hour, is always worth while.