soon as possible. I am tired of poverty, and of the
smiles of the insolent scholars who are superior to me only in their
fortune; for there is not one among them who feels one-hundredth part
of the noble sentiments by which I am animated. Must your son, sir,
continually be the butt of these boobies, who, vain of the luxuries
which they enjoy, insult me with their laughter at the privations I am
forced to endure? No, father; No! If fortune refuses to smile upon me,
take me from Brienne, and make me, if you will, a mechanic. From these
words you may judge of my despair. This letter, sir, please believe, is
not dictated by a vain desire to enjoy expensive amusements. I have no
such wish. I feel simply that it is necessary to show my companions that
I can procure them as well as they, if I wish to do so.

"Your respectful and affectionate son,

"BONAPARTE."

It took some time to write this letter; for, with Napoleon,
letter-writing was always a detested task.

When he had written and directed it, he felt better. We always do feel
relieved, you know, if we speak out or write down our feelings. Then he
read a chapter in Plutarch about Alexander the Great. This set him to
thinking and planning how he would win a battle if he should ever become
a leader and commander. He had a notion that he knew just what he would
do; and, to prove that his plan was good, he threw himself on the garden
walk, and gathering a lot of pebbles, he began to set them in array,
as if they were soldiers, and to make all the moves and marches and
counter-marches of a furious battle. He indicated the generals and chief
officers in this army of stone by the larger pebbles; and you may be
sure that the largest pebble of all represented the commander-in-chief
--and that was Napoleon himself.

As he marshalled his pebble army, under the lead of his generals and
officers, shifting some, advancing others, rearranging certain of them
in squares, and massing others as if to resist an attack, Napoleon was
conscious of a snickering sort of laugh from somewhere above him.

He looked up, and caught sight of a mocking face looking down at him
from the top of the hedge that bordered his garden.

"Ho, ho! Straw-nose!" the spy cried out; "and what is the baby doing?
Is it playing with the pretty pebbles? Is it making mud-pies? It was a
sweet child, so it was."

Napoleon flushed with anger, enraged both at the intrusion and the
teasing.

"Pig! imbecile!" he