you think they'll refuse me, Tronchon?"

"Not if thou go the right way about it, lad. Thou mustn't fancy it's
like asking leave from the captain to spend the evening in a guinguette,
or to go to the play with thy sweetheart. No, no, boy. It must be done
'en regle.' Thou'lt have to wait on the general at his quarters at four
o'clock, when he 'receives,' as they call it. Thou'lt be there, mayhap,
an hour, ay, two, or three belike, and after all, perhaps, won't see him
that day at all! I was a week trying to catch Kellerman, and, at last,
he only spoke to me going down stairs with his staff.

"'Eh, Tronchon, another bullet in thy old carcass; want a furlough to
get strong again, eh?'

"'No, colonel; all sound this time. I want to be a sergeant--I'm twelve
years and four months corporal.'

"'Slow work, too,' said he, laughing, 'ain't it, Charles?' and he
pinched one of his young officers by the cheek. 'Let old Tronehon have
his grade; and I say, my good fellow,' said he to me, 'don't come
plaguing me any more about promotion, till I'm General of Division. You
hear that?'

"Well, he's got his step since; but I never teased him after."

"And why so, Tronchon?" said I.

"I'll tell thee, lad," whispered he, in a low, confidential tone, as if
imparting a secret well worth the hearing. "They can find fellows every
day fit for lieutenants and chefs d'escadron. Parbleu! they meet with
them in every cafe, in every 'billiard' you enter; but a sergeant,
Maurice, one that drills his men on parade--can dress them like a
wall--see that every kit is well packed, and every cartouch well
filled--who knows every soul in his company as he knows the buckles of
his own sword-belt--that's what one should not chance upon, in haste.
It's easy enough to manoeuvre the men, Maurice; but to make them, boy,
to fashion the fellows so that they be like the pieces of a great
machine, that's the real labor--that's soldiering, indeed."

"And you say I must write a petition, Tronchon?" said I, more anxious to
bring him back to my own affairs, than listen to these speculations of
his. "How shall I do it?"

"Sit down there, lad, and I'll tell thee. I've done the thing some
scores of times, and know the words as well as I once knew my 'Pater.'
Parbleu, I often wish I could remember that now, just to keep me from
gloomy thoughts when I sit alone of an evening."

It was not a little to his astonishment, but still more to his delight,
that I told the