e, the General Robert? That daredevil in me had led me into this
dishonor, with the excuse, it is true, of fear that the wicked Uncle
would not have mended the hip of small Pierre if I did not obey his
summons as a nephew. And now I must stay to be of service to him and
to the Gouverneur Faulkner but also to be more involved in that lie
and to accept more confidence and affection with thievery.

"I cannot sell the lands of timber with you, my Buzz," I made answer
to him quickly and with fierceness. "As soon as this business of the
mules is settled and my Uncle, the General Robert, no longer requires
my services, I must return and go into the trenches of France." And I
felt as I spoke that my fate was decided, and a great calmness came
over me. "Then I'll go with you," answered me that Buzz with a look of
the steadfast affection which might have grown with years of
comradeship. "I'll go and fight for France with you if you'll come
back and build an American family alongside of mine. Jump out--we are
fifteen minutes late--and watch the General scalp me. Come in through
his office and take a part of it, will you?"

Even in the very short time which I had known my Uncle, the General
Robert, I had discovered that the times at which could be anticipated
explosions, none came, and also the reverse of that fact. When my Buzz
and I entered his office he very hastily concealed a book that had
some variety of richly colored pictures in it in his desk and smiled
with a wink of the eye at my Buzz. Later I should know about that book
to my great joy.

"Here's a letter for you, Robert, and go get to your knitting with
Governor Bill," he said to me with kindness in his smile as he handed
me a large letter and motioned me from the room into the small
anteroom that I now knew to be the place assigned to my Buzz and me
when not wanted in the offices of my Uncle, the General Robert, or the
Gouverneur Faulkner. I made a low bow to my Uncle, the General Robert,
and also to Monsieur the Bumble Bee and departed thence.

On seating myself at my table to await the bell of the Gouverneur
Faulkner, without which ringing my Buzz had instructed me I must never
on pain of extinction as a secretary enter His Excellency's office, I
opened that letter and began to read with difficulty a letter of a few
words from my wee Pierre, now in the hospital of that kind Doctor
Burns. I read not more than one sentence when I leaped to my feet with
a cry of joy