e.

"French?" said the soldier, looking at her. "Good. Yes. I am quartered
here. Thirty-six, Frauengasse. Sebastian; musician. You are lucky to get
me. I always give satisfaction--ha!"

He gave a curt laugh in one syllable only. His left arm was curved
round a bundle of wood bound together by a red pocket-handkerchief not
innocent of snuff. He held out this bundle to Desiree, as Solomon may
have held out some great gift to the Queen of Sheba to smooth the first
doubtful steps of friendship.

Desiree accepted the gift and stood in her wedding-dress holding the
bundle of wood against her breast. Then a gleam of the one grey eye that
was visible conveyed to her the fact that this walnut-faced warrior was
smiling. She laughed gaily.

"It is well," said Barlasch. "We are friends. You are lucky to get me.
You may not think so now. Would this woman like me to speak to her in
Polish or German?"

"Do you speak so many languages?"

He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his arms as far as his many
burdens allowed. For he was hung round with a hundred parcels and
packages.

"The Old Guard," he said, "can always make itself understood."

He rubbed his hands together with the air of a brisk man ready for any
sort of work.

"Now, where shall I sleep?" he asked. "One is not particular, you
understand. A few minutes and one is at home--perhaps peeling the
potatoes. It is only a civilian who is ashamed of using his knife on a
potato. Papa Barlasch, they call me."

Without awaiting an invitation he went forward towards the kitchen. He
seemed to know the house by instinct. His progress was accompanied by
a clatter of utensils like that which heralds the coming of a carrier's
cart.

At the kitchen door he stopped and sniffed loudly. There certainly was
a slight odour of burning fat. Papa Barlasch turned and shook an
admonitory finger at the servant, but he said nothing. He looked round
at the highly polished utensils, at the table and floor both alike
scrubbed clean by a vigorous northern arm. And he was kind enough to nod
approval.

"On a campaign," he said to no one in particular, "a little bit of
horse thrust into the cinders on the end of a bayonet--but in times of
peace..."

He broke off and made a gesture towards the saucepans which indicated
quite clearly that he was between campaigns--inclined to good living.

"I am a rude fork," he jerked to Desiree over his shoulder in the
dialect of the Cotes du Nord.

"H