the year 1812. I don't know my age
exactly, but it has always been a weakness of mine to make it out less
than it really is.

"I assure you, general, I do not in the least doubt your statement. One
of our living autobiographers states that when he was a small baby in
Moscow in 1812 the French soldiers fed him with bread."

"Well, there you see!" said the general, condescendingly. "There is
nothing whatever unusual about my tale. Truth very often appears to
be impossible. I was a page--it sounds strange, I dare say. Had I been
fifteen years old I should probably have been terribly frightened
when the French arrived, as my mother was (who had been too slow about
clearing out of Moscow); but as I was only just ten I was not in the
least alarmed, and rushed through the crowd to the very door of the
palace when Napoleon alighted from his horse."

"Undoubtedly, at ten years old you would not have felt the sense of
fear, as you say," blurted out the prince, horribly uncomfortable in the
sensation that he was just about to blush.

"Of course; and it all happened so easily and naturally. And yet, were
a novelist to describe the episode, he would put in all kinds of
impossible and incredible details."

"Oh," cried the prince, "I have often thought that! Why, I know of a
murder, for the sake of a watch. It's in all the papers now. But if
some writer had invented it, all the critics would have jumped down his
throat and said the thing was too improbable for anything. And yet you
read it in the paper, and you can't help thinking that out of these
strange disclosures is to be gained the full knowledge of Russian life
and character. You said that well, general; it is so true," concluded
the prince, warmly, delighted to have found a refuge from the fiery
blushes which had covered his face.

"Yes, it's quite true, isn't it?" cried the general, his eyes sparkling
with gratification. "A small boy, a child, would naturally realize no
danger; he would shove his way through the crowds to see the shine and
glitter of the uniforms, and especially the great man of whom everyone
was speaking, for at that time all the world had been talking of no one
but this man for some years past. The world was full of his name; I--so
to speak--drew it in with my mother's milk. Napoleon, passing a couple
of paces from me, caught sight of me accidentally. I was very well
dressed, and being all alone, in that crowd, as you will easily
imagine...

"Oh,