d, "we paid each other all sorts of compliments, and
parted the best friends in the world."

"How does he impress you?"

"As a perfectly well-bred man."

"How old do you take him to be?"

"About my age, at the outside."

"So I think; his voice is youthful. What now, Roland, can I be mistaken?
Is there a new royalist generation growing up?"

"No, general," replied Roland, shrugging his shoulders; "it's the
remains of the old one."

"Well, Roland, we must build up another, devoted to my son--if ever I
have one."

Roland made a gesture which might be translated into the words, "I don't
object." Bonaparte understood the gesture perfectly.

"You must do more than not object," said he; "you must contribute to
it."

A nervous shudder passed over Roland's body.

"In what way, general?" he asked.

"By marrying."

Roland burst out laughing.

"Good! With my aneurism?" he asked.

Bonaparte looked at him, and said: "My dear Roland, your aneurism looks
to me very much like a pretext for remaining single."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes; and as I am a moral man I insist upon marriage."

"Does that mean that I am immoral," retorted Roland, "or that I cause
any scandal with my mistresses?"

"Augustus," answered Bonaparte, "created laws against celibates,
depriving them of their rights as Roman citizens."

"Augustus--"

"Well?"

"I'll wait until you are Augustus; as yet, you are only Caesar."

Bonaparte came closer to the young man, and, laying his hands on his
shoulders, said: "Roland, there are some names I do not wish to see
extinct, and among them is that of Montrevel."

"Well, general, in my default, supposing that through caprice or
obstinacy I refuse to perpetuate it, there is my little brother."

"What! Your brother? Then you have a brother?"

"Why, yes; I have a brother! Why shouldn't I have brother?"

"How old is he?"

"Eleven or twelve."

"Why did you never tell me about him?"

"Because I thought the sayings and doings of a youngster of that age
could not interest you."

"You are mistaken, Roland; I am interested in all that concerns my
friends. You ought to have asked me for something for your brother."

"Asked what, general?"

"His admission into some college in Paris."

"Pooh! You have enough beggars around you without my swelling their
number."

"You hear; he is to come to Paris and enter college. When he is old
enough, I will send him to the Ecole Militare, or some other school