Part 2 (2/2)
”What of that! Why, my dear fellow, you are as innocent as a school girl.
Don't you see he can get you on some general's staff, and have you promoted every time there is a skirmish?”
”I don't want to be promoted unless I earn it.”
”Of course you don't; but every officer that earns it won't get it. By the way, Somers, can't you introduce me to the old gentleman?”
”I never saw him before in my life.”
”No matter for that. I'll warrant you, he'll be glad to make all your friends his friends.”
”But I don't feel enough acquainted with him to introduce a gentleman whom I never saw in my life till two hours ago.”
”You are right, my dear fellow; excuse me,” replied Captain de Banyan, looking very much disappointed. ”I dare say, if I should show him the autograph of the Emperor of France, he would be very glad to know me.”
”No doubt of it. At any rate, I recommend you to make the trial.”
”Yes; but the mischief of it is, I have left all those papers at home.”
”That's unfortunate,” added Lieutenant Somers, who had some serious doubts in regard to the existence of those papers.
”So it is. If I had been lucky enough to have made the acquaintance of that young lady, as you have, I would not let my aspirations stop short of the stars of a major-general.”
”You need not as it is, if you do your duty.”
”Ah! my dear fellow, you are as sentimental as a girl of sixteen. I am a modest man; but, in my estimation, there are ten thousand men in the army as good as I am. They can't all be major-generals, can they?”
”Certainly not.”
”Then, if you live a few months longer, you will find out how good a thing it is to have a friend at court. You are a modest young man; but I suppose you think there isn't another man in the army who is quite your equal, and that your merit and your bravery will make a brigadier of you in less than a year. It's a good thing to think so; but----”
”I don't think so. That would be modesty with a vengeance.”
”I was a sentimental boy like you once, and I was just as certain that I should be made a field-marshal, and have the command of the French army in the Crimea----”
”I thought you were in the English army in the Crimea,” interposed the young lieutenant, eager to change the subject.
”Certainly, in the English army; that's what I said,” continued the gallant captain, entirely unmoved by the interruption. ”I was just as sure of having the command of the British army in the Crimea as you are of becoming a brigadier by the time we get into Richmond. But I have no friends at court as you have now.”
”I never thought of such a thing as being a brigadier,” protested Somers.
”I never even expected to become a second lieutenant.”
”It isn't much to be a brigadier. I served with 'Old Rosey' in West Virginia for a time. We had a captain there who didn't know any more about military than a swine does about Lord Chesterfield's table etiquette. He went into action with a cane in his hand, hawbucking his company about just as a farmer does a yoke of cattle. That fellow is a brigadier-general now; and there's hope for you and me, if we can only have a friend at court.”
”I am higher now than I ever expected to be, and I wouldn't give a straw for fifty friends at court.”
<script>