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"If he asks thee 'Canst ride? just say, 'Old Tronchon taught me; he'll be one of the young hands, indeed, if he don't know that name! And mind, lad, have no whims or caprices about whatever service he names thee for, even were't the infantry itself! It's a hard word, that! I know it well! but a man must make up his mind for any thing and every thing.
If your worship would like a drop, sound though warm, I have a gourd here full of the best, and some scraps of Tronchon cheese that will serve as a provocative and wakener of your thirst if so be it is asleep." "I take the offer," said Sancho; "no more compliments about it; pour out, good Tosilos, in spite of all the enchanters in the Indies."
"As for the petition," said Tronchon, seating himself opposite to me at the table, "it is soon done; for, mark me, lad, these things must always be short; if thou be long-winded, they put thee away, and tell some of the clerks to look after thee and there's an end of it.
Ay, just so." "I'm ready, Tronchon, go on." "'Mon General! Nay, nay General mustn't be as large as France yes, that's better. 'The undersigned, whose certificates of service and conduct are herewith inclosed." "Stay, stop a moment, Tronchon; don't forget that I have got neither one or t'other." "No matter; I'll make thee out both.
That came without asking for in my case." "Then, what's to be done, Tronchon? clearly, this won't do!" He nodded sententiously an assent, and, after a moment's rumination, said,
The prayer of my petition being once understood, he discussed the project gravely enough; but to my surprise he was far more struck by the absurd figure he should cut with his diminished mane, than I with my mock mustache. "There's not a child in Nancy won't laugh at me they'll cry, 'There goes old Tronchon he's like Klaber's charger, which the German cut the tail off to make a shako plume!"
I don't seek promotion till I have deserved it." "Better still, lad. I was eight years myself in the ranks before they gave me the stripe on my arm. Parbleu! the Germans had given me some three or four with the sabre before that time." "Do you think they'll refuse me, Tronchon?" "Not if thou go the right way about it, lad.
"I shared my quarters last night with one, not older, Tronchon, and he was an officer, and had seen many a battle-field." "I know that, too," said the veteran, with an expression of impatience, "that General Bonaparte will give every boy his epaulets, before an old and tried soldier." "It was not Bonaparte. It was " "I care not who promoted the lad; the system is just the same with them all.
It's easy enough to manoeuvre the men, Maurice; but to make them, boy, to fashion the fellows so that they be like the pieces of a great machine, that's the real labor that's soldiering, indeed." "And you say I must write a petition, Tronchon?" said I, more anxious to bring him back to my own affairs, than listen to these speculations of his. "How shall I do it?"
I'm certain he'd not refuse me; to be sure the beard is a red one, and pretty much like bell-wire in consistence; no matter, better that than this girlish smooth chin I now wear. Tronchon was spelling out the Moniteur's account of the Italian campaign as I entered his room, and found it excessively difficult to get back from the Alps and Apennines to the humble request I preferred.
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