His Excellency is to make a speech to us to-night; then the General--ah, what a fine soldier, and eighty years old!--he's to give orders, and make a speech also; and I'm to be colonel,"-- he paused dramatically,--"and you three are for captains; and you're to have five new yellow buttons to your coats, like these." He drew out gold coins and jingled them.

Every man got to his feet, and Muroc let the coffee-tin fall.

"There's to be a grand review in the village this afternoon.

There's breakfast for you, my dears!" Their exclamations were interrupted by Lajeunesse, who added: "And so my Madelinette is to go to Paris, after all, and Monsieur Parpon is to see that she starts right." "Monsieur" Parpon was a new title for the dwarf.

But the great comedy, so well played, had justified it.