lgenstein,' resumed the other.

'A kidnapped deserter,' said M. Potzdorff; 'la belle affaire!'

'Well, I promised the lad I would ask for his discharge; and I am sure
you can make him useful.'

'You HAVE asked his discharge,' answered the elder, laughing. 'Bon Dieu!
You are a model of probity! You'll never succeed to my place, George, if
you are no wiser than you are just now. Make the fellow as useful to you
as you please. He has a good manner and a frank countenance. He can lie
with an assurance that I never saw surpassed, and fight, you say, on a
pinch. The scoundrel does not want for good qualities; but he is vain, a
spendthrift, and a bavard. As long as you have the regiment in terrorem
over him, you can do as you like with him. Once let him loose, and the
lad is likely to give you the slip. Keep on promising him; promise to
make him a general, if you like. What the deuce do I care? There are
spies enough to be had in this town without him.'

It was thus that the services I rendered to M. Potzdorff were qualified
by that ungrateful old gentleman; and I stole away from the room
extremely troubled in spirit, to think that another of my fond dreams
was thus dispelled; and that my hopes of getting out of the army,
by being useful to the Captain, were entirely vain. For some time
my despair was such, that I thought of marrying the widow; but the
marriages of privates are never allowed without the direct permission
of the King; and it was a matter of very great doubt whether His Majesty
would allow a young fellow of twenty-two, the handsomest man of his
army, to be coupled to a pimplefaced old widow of sixty, who was
quite beyond the age when her marriage would be likely to multiply the
subjects of His Majesty. This hope of liberty was therefore vain; nor
could I hope to purchase my discharge, unless any charitable soul would
lend me a large sum of money; for, though I made a good deal, as I
have said, yet I have always had through life an incorrigible knack of
spending, and (such is my generosity of disposition) have been in debt
ever since I was born.

My captain, the sly rascal! gave me a very different version of his
conversation with his uncle to that which I knew to be the true one; and
said smilingly to me, 'Redmond, I have spoken to the Minister regarding
thy services,[Footnote: The service about which Mr. Barry here speaks
has, and we suspect purposely, been described by him in very dubious
terms. It is mos