a couple of turns
of his hand, replaced the bandage, so that my shoulder could not move,
and everything was in order.

I felt much better. Ten minutes after a hospital steward put a shirt
on me without hurting me--such was his skill.

The surgeon, passing to another bed, cried:

"What! You here again, old fellow?"

"Yes; it is I, Monsieur the Baron," replied the artilleryman, proud to
be recognized; "the first time was at Austerlitz, the second at Jena,
and then I received two thrusts of a lance at Smolensk."

"Yes, yes," said the surgeon kindly; "and now what is the matter with
you?"

"Three sabre-cuts on my left arm while I was defending my piece from
the Prussian hussars."

The surgeon unwound the bandage, and asked,

"Have you the cross?"

"No, Monsieur the Baron."

"What is your name?"

"Christian Zimmer, of the Second horse artillery."

"Very good!"

He dressed the wounds, and went to the next, saying:

"You will soon be well."

He returned, chatting with the others, and went out after finishing his
round and giving some orders to the nurses.

The old artilleryman's heart seemed overflowing with joy; and, as I
concluded from his name that he came from Alsace, I spoke to him in our
language, at which he was still more rejoiced. He was a tall
fellow--at least six feet in height, with round shoulders, a flat
forehead, large nose, light red mustaches, and was as hard as a rock,
but a good man for all that. His eyes twinkled when I spoke Alsatian
to him, and he pricked up his ears at once. If I asked him in our
tongue he was willing to give me everything he had, but he had only a
clasp of the hand, which cracked the bones in mine to give. He called
me _Josephel_, as they did at home, and said:

"Josephel, be careful how you swallow the medicines they give you, only
take what you know. All that does not smell good is good for nothing.
If they would give us a bottle of _Rikevir_ every day we would soon be
well; but it is easier to spoil our digestion with a handful of vile
boiled herbs, than to bring us a little of the good white wine of
Alsace."

When I told him I was afraid of dying of the fever, he looked angry
with his great gray eyes, and said:

"Josephel, you are a fool. Do you think that such tall fellows as you
and I were born to die in a hospital? No, no; drive the idea from your
head."

But he spoke in vain, for every morning the surgeons, making their
rounds, found seven