rds. A
confounded country where any one could have as many acres of land as he
wished for as little as he pleased.

"While he was busy inland, where he meant to carry out some wonderful
ideas of his, the English burn his fleet for him in Aboukir Bay, for
they never could do enough to annoy us. But Napoleon, who was respected
East and West, and called 'My Son' by the Pope, and 'My dear Father' by
Mahomet's cousin, makes up his mind to have his revenge on England,
and to take India in exchange for his fleet. He set out to lead us into
Asia, by way of the Red Sea, through a country where there were palaces
for halting-places, and nothing but gold and diamonds to pay the troops
with, when the Mahdi comes to an understanding with the Plague, and
sends it among us to make a break in our victories. Halt! Then every man
files off to that parade from which no one comes back on his two feet.
The dying soldier cannot take Acre, into which he forces an entrance
three times with a warrior's impetuous enthusiasm; the Plague was too
strong for us; there was not even time to say 'Your servant, sir!' to
the Plague. Every man was down with it. Napoleon alone was as fresh as a
rose; the whole army saw him drinking in the Plague without it doing him
any harm whatever.

"There now, my friends, was that natural, do you think?

"The Mamelukes, knowing that we were all on the sick-list, want to stop
our road; but it was no use trying that nonsense with Napoleon. So he
spoke to his familiars, who had tougher skins than the rest:

"'Go and clear the road for me.'

"Junot, who was his devoted friend, and a first-class fighter, only
takes a thousand men, and makes a clean sweep of the Pasha's army, which
had the impudence to bar our way. Thereupon back we came to Cairo, our
headquarters, and now for another story.

"Napoleon being out of the country, France allowed the people in Paris
to worry the life out of her. They kept back the soldiers' pay and all
their linen and clothing, left them to starve, and expected them to
lay down law to the universe, without taking any further trouble in
the matter. They were idiots of the kind that amuse themselves with
chattering instead of setting themselves to knead the dough. So our
armies were defeated, France could not keep her frontiers; The Man was
not there. I say The Man, look you, because that was how they called
him; but it was stuff and nonsense, for he had a star of his own and all
his other