ason why
Matey should; and walking home at his grand swing in the October dusk,
their school hero drew their national hero closer to them.

Every fellow present was dead against the usher, Mr. Shalders, when he
took advantage of a pause to strike in with his "Murat!"

He harped on Murat whenever he had a chance. Now he did it for the
purpose of casting eclipse upon Major-General Lord Ormont, the son and
grandson of English earls; for he was an earl by his title, and Murat was
the son of an innkeeper. Shalders had to admit that Murat might have
served in the stables when a boy. Honour to Murat, of course, for
climbing the peaks! Shalders, too, might interest him in military affairs
and Murat; he did no harm, and could be amusing. It rather added to his
amount of dignity. It was rather absurd, at the same time, for an English
usher to be spouting and glowing about a French general, who had been a
stable-boy and became a king, with his Murat this, Murat that, and hurrah
Murat in red and white and green uniform, tunic and breeches, and a
chimney-afire of feathers; and how the giant he was charged at the head
of ten thousand horse, all going like a cataract under a rainbow over the
rocks, right into the middle of the enemy and through; and he a spark
ahead, and the enemy streaming on all sides flat away, as you see puffed
smoke and flame of a bonfire. That was fun to set boys jigging. No wonder
how in Russia the Cossacks feared him, and scampered from the shadow of
his plumes--were clouds flying off his breath! That was a fine warm
picture for the boys on late autumn or early winter evenings, Shalders
warming his back at the grate, describing bivouacs in the snow. They
liked well enough to hear him when he was not opposing Matey and Lord
Ormont. He perked on his toes, and fetched his hand from behind him to
flourish it when his Murat came out. The speaking of his name clapped him
on horseback--the only horseback he ever knew. He was as fond of giving
out the name Murat as you see in old engravings of tobacco-shops men
enjoying the emission of their whiff of smoke.

Matey was not inclined to class Lord Ormont alongside Murat, a first-rate
horseman and an eagle-eye, as Shalders rightly said; and Matey agreed
that forty thousand cavalry under your orders is a toss above fifteen
hundred; but the claim for a Frenchman of a superlative merit to swallow
and make nothing of the mention of our best cavalry generals irritated
him to