ooked as crestfallen as one of his fraternity could; he
knew well enough that what he had said could get him twenty blows of the
stick, if his corporal chose to give him up to judgment; but he had too
much of the Parisian in him still not to have his say, though he should
be shot for it.

"Send me to Beylick, if you like, Corporal," he said sturdily; "I was in
wrath for you--not for myself."

Cecil was infinitely more touched than he dared, for the sake of
discipline, for sake of the speaker himself, to show; but his glance
dwelt on Petit Picpon with a look that the quick, black, monkey-like
eyes of the rebel were swift to read.

"I know," he said gravely. "I do not misjudge you, but at the same time,
my name must never serve as a pretext for insubordination. Such men as
care to pleasure me will best do so in making my duty light by their own
self-control and obedience to the rules of their service."

He led his horse away, and Petit Picpon went on an errand he had been
sent to do in the streets for one of the officers. Picpon was unusually
thoughtful and sober in deportment for him, since he was usually given
to making his progress along a road, taken unobserved by those in
command over him, with hands and heels in the dexterous somersaults of
his early days.

Now he went along without any unprofessional antics, biting the tip of
a smoked-out cigar, which he had picked up off the pavement in sheer
instinct, retained from the old times when he had used to rush in,
the foremost of la queue, into the forsaken theaters of Bouffes or of
Varietes in search for those odds and ends which the departed audience
might have left behind them--one of the favorite modes of seeking a
livelihood with the Parisian night-birds.

"Dame! I will give it up then," resolved Picpon, half aloud, valorously.

Now Picpon had come forth on evil thoughts intent.

His officer--a careless and extravagant man, the richest man in
the regiment--had given him a rather small velvet bag, sealed, with
directions to take it to a certain notorious beauty of Algiers, whose
handsome Moresco eyes smiled--or, at least, he believed so--exclusively
for the time on the sender. Picpon was very quick, intelligent, and much
liked by his superiors, so that he was often employed on errands; and
the tricks he played in the execution thereof were so adroitly done
that they were never detected. Picpon had chuckled to himself over this
mission. It was but the work o