I told him that our first meeting only dated a few moments back, and how
it had occurred.

"Then you are not of the 'Troupe'? You have never worn the uniform till
this morning?" said he, somewhat severely.

I bowed assent.

He turned hastily about at the moment, and said something to his
secretary in a low voice, of which I just could catch the concluding
words, which were far from flattering to the corps in whose livery I was
dressed.

"Well, boy, go back and take off those clothes," said he, sternly;
"resume your trade or occupation, whatever it be, and leave politics and
state affairs to those who can understand them. Tell your father--"

"I have none, sir."

"Your mother, then, or your friends, I care not what they be. What
letter is that you are crumpling in your fingers?" broke he in,
suddenly.

"To General Danitan, sir."

"Give it me," said he, half snatching it from me.

He tore it hastily open and read it, occasionally looking from the
paper to myself, as he went on. He then leaned over the table where the
secretary sat, and, showed him the letter. They conversed eagerly for
some seconds together, and then the general said,--

"Your friends have recommended you for a post in the 'chancellerie
militaire': is that your liking, lad?"

"I should be proud to think myself capable of doing anything for my own
support," was my answer.

"D'Artans, see to him; let him be enrolled as a supernumerary, and
lodged with the others.--This gentleman will instruct you in your duty,"
added he to me, while, with a slight nod towards the door, he motioned
me to withdraw.

I retired at once to the antechamber, where I sat down to think over my
future prospects, and canvass in my mind my strange situation.

Troops of officers in full and half dress, orderlies with despatches,
aides-de-camp in hot haste, came and went through that room for hours;
and yet there I sat, unnoticed and unrecognized by any, till I began
to feel in my isolation a sense of desertion and loneliness I had never
known before.

It was already evening when D'Artans joined me, and taking my arm
familiarly within his own, said,--

"Come along, Jasper, and let us dine together."

The sound of my own name so overcame me that I could scarcely restrain
my tears as I heard it. It was a memory of home and the past too
touching to be resisted!

CHAPTER XXVII. THE BATTLE OF THE SECTIONS

There could not have been a readier process of disencha