ourse know French."

"I congratulate you, though how you learnt it, up in the hills, I
know not. I did not know a word of it, when I came out two years
ago; and it is always on my mind, for of course I have a master
who, when I am not otherwise engaged, comes to me for an hour a
day, and well nigh maddens me with his crack-jaw words; but I don't
seem to make much progress. If I am sent with an order, and the
officer to whom I take it does not understand French, I am floored.
Of course I hand the order, if it is a written one, to him. If it
is not, but just some verbal message, asking him to call on the
marshal at such and such a time, I generally make a horrible mess
of it. He gets in a rage with me, because he cannot understand me.
I get in a rage with him, for his dulness; and were it not that he
generally manages to find some other officer, who does understand
French, the chances are very strongly against Keith's message being
attended to.

"First of all, I will take you to our quarters. That is the house."

"Why, I thought you lodged in the palace?"

"Heaven forbid! Macgregor has a room in the chief's suite of apartments.
He is senior aide-de-camp, and if there is any message to be sent late,
he takes it; but that is not often the case. Gordon lodges here with
me. The house is a sort of branch establishment to the palace. Malcolm
Menzies and Horace Farquhar, two junior aides of the king, are in the
same corridor with us. Of course we make up a party by ourselves. Then
there are ten or twelve German officers--some of them aides-de-camp
of the Princes Maurice and Henry, the Prince of Bevern and General
Schwerin--besides a score or so of palace officials.

"Fortunately the Scotch corridor, as we call it, has a separate
entrance, so we can go in or out without disturbing anyone. It is a
good thing, for in fact we and the Prussians do not get on very
well together. They have a sort of jealousy of us; which is, I
suppose, natural enough. Foreigners are never favourites, and
George's Hanoverian officers are not greatly loved in London. I
expect a campaign will do good, that way. They will see, at any
rate, that we don't take our pay for nothing, and are ready to do a
full share and more of fighting; while we shall find that these
stiff pipe-clayed figures are brave fellows, and good comrades,
when they get a little of the starch washed out of them.

"Now, this is my room, and I see my man has got dinner ready."