If I were not a hussar----'

'Bah!' said he, interrupting, 'what of that? Where shouldst thou have
had thy baptism of blood, boy? Art a child--nothing more.'

'I shared my quarters last night with one, not older, Tronchon, and he
was an officer, and had seen many a battlefield.'

'I know that, too,' said the veteran, with an expression of
impatience--'and that General Bonaparte will give every boy his
epaulettes before an old and tried soldier.'

'It was not Bonaparte. It was----'

'I care not who promoted the lad; the system is just the same with them
all. It is no longer, "Where have you served?--what have you seen?"
but, "Can you read glibly?--can you write faster than speak?--have you
learned to take towns upon paper, and attack a breastwork with a rule
and a pair of compasses?" This is what they called "_le genie_" "_le
genie_"--ha! ha! ha!' cried he, laughing heartily; 'that's the name old
women used to give the devil when I was a boy.'

It was with the greatest difficulty I could get him back from these
disagreeable reminiscences to the object of my visit, and, even then,
I could hardly persuade him that I was serious in asking the loan of a
beard. The prayer of my petition being once understood, he discussed the
project gravely enough; but to my surprise he was far more struck by the
absurd figure _he_ should cut with his diminished mane, than _I_ with my
mock moustache.

'There's not a child in Nancy won't laugh at me--they'll cry, "There
goes old Tronchon--he's like Kleber's charger, which the German cut the
tail off, to make a shako plume!"'

'I assured him that he might as well pretend to miss one tree in the
forest of Fontainebleau--that after furnishing a squadron like myself,
his would be still the first beard in the Republic; and at last he
yielded, and gave in.

Never did a little damsel of the nursery array her doll with
more delighted looks, and gaze upon her handiwork with more
self-satisfaction, than did old Tronchon survey me, as, with the aid
of a little gum, he decorated my lip with a stiff line of his iron-red
beard.

'_Diantre!_' cried he, in ecstasy, 'if thou ben't something like a man
after all. Who would have thought it would have made such a change? Thou
might pass for one that saw real smoke and real fire, any day, lad. Ay!
thou hast another look in thine eye, and another way to carry thy
head, now! Trust me, thou'lt look a different fellow on the left of the
squadron.'

I b