you, comrades? He thinks, because he has seen the
republic, the consulate, the empire, the hundred days, the kingdom"--

"And is not that enough, youngster?" interrupted the old veteran they
called Father Nonesuch.[1]

[1] Perhaps the correct rendering of this nickname would be
"The Remnant," and it applies to the battered veteran even
better than "Nonesuch."]

He certainly merited the nickname given him by his comrades; for I saw,
by glancing at him, that the old veteran had but one leg, one arm, and
one eye.

"Enough?" echoed the one called "the youngster," whose grizzled locks
showed him to be at least fifty years old, "Enough? Well, perhaps--for
you. But, my faith! I cannot see that they were finer than the 'Thousand
and one Nights.'"

"Bah!" again cried old Nonesuch contemptuously; "but those were fairy
stories, I tell you, youngster,--untrue stories,--pagan stories.
But when one can tell, as can I, of stories that are true,--of
history--history this--history that--true histories every one--bah!"
and, shrugging his shoulders, old Nonesuch tapped upon his neighbor's
snuff-box, and, with his only hand, drew out a mighty pinch by way of
emphasis.

"Well, what say thou, Nonesuch,--you and your histories?" persisted the
young admirer of the "Arabian Nights."

"As for me,--my faith! I like only marvellous."

[Illustration: "Beneath the great dome
he rests"--The Hotel des Invalides (The 'Soldiers' Home' in Paris,
containing the Tomb of Napoleon)]

"And I tell you this, youngster," the old veteran cried, while his voice
cracked into a tremble in his excitement, "there is more of the
marvellous in the one little finger of my history than in all the
characters you can crowd together in your 'Thousand and One Nights.'
Bah!--Stephen, boy; light my pipe."

"And what is your history, Father Nonesuch?" demanded "the youngster,"
while two-armed Stephen, a gray old "boy" of seventy, filled and lighted
the old veteran's pipe.

"My history?" cried old Nonesuch, struggling to his feet,--or rather to
his foot,--and removing his hat, "it is, my son, that of the Emperor
Napoleon!"

And at the word, each old soldier sprang also to his feet, and removed
his hat silently and in reverence.

"Why, youngster!" old Father Nonesuch continued, dropping again to the
bench, "if one wished to relate about my emperor a thousand and one
stories a thousand and one nights; to see even a thousand and one days
increas