ed by a thousand and one battles, adding to that a thousand and
one victories, one would have a thousand and a million million things
--fine, glorious, delightful, to hear. For, remember, comrades," and the
old man well-nigh exploded with his mathematical calculation, and the
grandeur of his own recollections, "remember you this: I never left the
great Napoleon!"

"Ah, yes," another aged veteran chimed in; "ah, yes; he was a great
man."

Old Nonesuch clapped his hand to his ear.

"Pardon me, comrade the Corsican," he said, with the air of one who had
not heard aright; "excuse my question, but would you kindly tell me whom
you call a great man?"

"Whom, old deaf ears? Why, the Emperor Napoleon, of course," replied the
Corsican.

Old Nonesuch burst out laughing, and pounded the pavement with his heavy
cane.

"To call the emperor a man!" he exclaimed; "and what, then, will you
call me?"

"You? why, what should we?" said the Corsican veteran; "old Father
Nonesuch, old 'Not Entire,' otherwise, Corporal Francis Haut of
Brienne."

"Ah, bah!" cried the persistent veteran; "I do not mean my name, stupid!
I mean my quality, my--my title, my--well--my sex,--indeed, what am I?"
"Well, what is left of you, I suppose," laughed the Corsican, "we might
call a man."

"A man! there you have it exactly!" cried old Nonesuch. "I am a man; and
so are you, Corsican, and you, Stephen, and you,--almost so,--youngster.
But my emperor--the Emperor Napoleon! was he a man? Away with you! It
was the English who invented that story; they did not know what he was
capable of, those English! The emperor a man? Bah!"

"What was he, then? A woman?" queried the Corsican.

"Ah, stupid one! where are your wits?" cried old Nonesuch, shaking pipe
and cane excitedly. "Are you, then, as dull as those English? Why, the
emperor was--the emperor! It is we, his soldiers, who were men."

The Corsican veteran shook his head musingly.

"It may be so; it may be so, good Nonesuch. I do not say no to you," he
said. "Ah, my dear emperor! I have seen him often. I knew him when he
was small; I knew him when he was grown. I saw him born; I saw him
die"--"Halt there!" cried old Nonesuch; "let me stop you once more,
good comrade Corsican. Do not make these other 'Not Entires' swallow
such impossible and indigestible things. The emperor was never born; the
emperor never died; the emperor has always been; the emperor always will
be. To prove it," he added quickl