troubles me," old Nonesuch continued musingly, as
he regarded his precious hand, "when I see those poor fellows, their
noses over a bit of paper, their bodies bent double! Writing is not
a man's proper state; it does not agree with his valiant and warlike
nature. Talk to me of a charge, of an onset! that is the true
vocation; that is why the good God created the human race.
One--two--three--shoulder arms! that is clear; that is easily
understood. But to study a dozen letters; to remember which is _b_ and
which is _o,_ and that _b_ and _o_ make _bo_! that is not meant for the
head. I prefer to read a battle with my musket and my sword. Pif! paf!
pouf! that is the way I read. And now that I can read no more, I have
but one pleasure,--to tell of my battles. Is not that better than your
'Thousand and One Nights,' youngster?"

"You have, indeed, much to tell, old Nonesuch," replied the youngster
guardedly, "and you have, indeed, seen much."

"Ah, have I not, though!" old Nonesuch responded. "Do you not remember,
Corsican, in the third year of the republic, as our government was then
called, how the word came: 'The English are in Toulon! Soldiers of
France, you must dislodge them!'?"

"Ah, do I not, old Nonesuch! I was a conscript then," replied the
Corsican.

"So, too, was I," said the old veteran. "We marched to Toulon. The next
day there was an action. I ate a kind of small pills I had never tasted
at Paris. The English and the French kept up a conversation with these
sugar-plums. Our dialogue went on for days. They would toss their
sugar-plums into the town; we would throw these plums back to them,
especially into one bonbon box. You remember that box--that fort,
Corsican, do you not?"

"What, the Little Gibraltar?" queried the Corsican.

"The same," replied old Nonesuch, "for so the English called it. But
they had to give it up. We filled the Little Gibraltar so full of our
sugar-plums that the English had to get out. Then it was that I saw a
thin little captain at the guns. I knew him at once. It was Bonaparte of
Brienne school. This is what he did. An artillery man was killed while
charging his piece. I do not know how many had been cut off at that same
gun. It was warm--it was hot there, I can tell you! No one wished to
approach it. Then my little captain--my Bonaparte of Brienne--dashed at
the gun. He loaded it; he was not killed. Oh, what a pleasure-party that
was! There he met two other tough ones like hims