ribbon
that the commandant wore, and made a silent and respectful military
salute.

"If the Little Corporal were alive," the officer cried, "you would have
the Cross of the Legion of Honor and a handsome pension besides, for
every man who wore epaulettes on the other side of the river owed his
life to you on the 1st of October 1812. But I am not the Minister of
War, my friend," the commandant added as he dismounted, and with a
sudden rush of feeling he grasped the laborer's hand.

The old pontooner drew himself up at the words, he knocked the ashes
from his pipe, and put it in his pocket.

"I only did my duty, sir," he said, with his head bent down; "but others
have not done their duty by me. They asked for my papers! Why, the
Twenty-ninth Bulletin, I told them, must do instead of my papers!"

"But you must make another application, comrade. You are bound to have
justice done you in these days, if influence is brought to bear in the
right quarter."

"Justice!" cried the veteran. The doctor and the commandant shuddered at
the tone in which he spoke.

In the brief pause that followed, both the horsemen looked at the man
before them, who seemed like a fragment of the wreck of great armies
which Napoleon had filled with men of bronze sought out from among three
generations. Gondrin was certainly a splendid specimen of that seemingly
indestructible mass of men which might be cut to pieces but never gave
way. The old man was scarcely five feet high, wide across the shoulders,
and broad-chested; his face was sunburned, furrowed with deep wrinkles,
but the outlines were still firm in spite of the hollows in it, and
one could see even now that it was the face of a soldier. It was a
rough-hewn countenance, his forehead seemed like a block of granite;
but there was a weary expression about his face, and the gray hairs
hung scantily about his head, as if life were waning there already.
Everything about him indicated unusual strength; his arms were covered
thickly with hair, and so was the chest, which was visible through the
opening of his coarse shirt. In spite of his almost crooked legs, he
held himself firm and erect, as if nothing could shake him.

"Justice," he said once more; "there will never be justice for the like
of us. We cannot send bailiffs to the Government to demand our dues for
us; and as the wallet must be filled somehow," he said, striking his
stomach, "we cannot afford to wait. Moreover, these gentry who