lead snug
lives in government offices may talk and talk, but their words are not
good to eat, so I have come back here again to draw my pay out of the
commonalty," he said, striking the mud with his spade.

"Things must not be left in that way, old comrade," said Genestas. "I
owe my life to you, and it would be ungrateful of me if I did not lend
you a hand. I have not forgotten the passage over the bridges in the
Beresina, and it is fresh in the memories of some brave fellows of my
acquaintance; they will back me up, and the nation shall give you the
recognition you deserve."

"You will be called a Bonapartist! Please do not meddle in the matter,
sir. I have gone to the rear now, and I have dropped into my hole here
like a spent bullet. But after riding on camels through the desert,
and drinking my glass by the fireside in Moscow, I never thought that I
should come back to die here beneath the trees that my father planted,"
and he began to work again.

"Poor old man!" said Genestas, as they turned to go. "I should do the
same if I were in his place; we have lost our father. Everything seems
dark to me now that I have seen that man's hopelessness," he went on,
addressing Benassis; "he does not know how much I am interested in him,
and he will think that I am one of those gilded rascals who cannot feel
for a soldier's sufferings."

He turned quickly and went back, grasped the veteran's hand, and spoke
loudly in his ear:

"I swear by the Cross I wear--the Cross of Honor it used to be--that I
will do all that man can do to obtain your pension for you; even if I
have to swallow a dozen refusals from the minister, and to petition the
king and the dauphin and the whole shop!"

Old Gondrin quivered as he heard the words. He looked hard at Genestas
and said, "Haven't you served in the ranks?" The commandant nodded. The
pontooner wiped his hand and took that of Genestas, which he grasped
warmly and said:

"I made the army a present of my life, general, when I waded out into
the river yonder, and if I am still alive, it is all so much to the
good. One moment! Do you care to see to the bottom of it? Well, then,
ever since _somebody_ was pulled down from his place, I have ceased
to care about anything. And, after all," he went on cheerfully, as he
pointed to the land, "they have made over twenty thousand francs to me
here, and I am taking it out in detail, as _he_ used to say!"

"Well, then, comrade," said Genestas, touch