CHAPTER NINETEEN.
THE LITTLE CORPORAL.
"But why," asked the Corsican, as old Nonesuch concluded his story, and all the veterans applauded with cane and boot, "why did you not say, 'I wish to be a general,' and keep your word.

Others like you have been soldiers of the emperor--and generals, marshals, princes." "Yes, Corsican," replied old Nonesuch sadly; "what you say is true.

But I will tell you what prevented my advancement.

I did not know how to read as well as a lot of the schemers who were in my regiment.

In fact," old Nonesuch confessed, "I could not write; I could not read at all." "Why did you not learn, then, father ?" asked one of the veterans, who, because he sat up late every night to read the daily paper, was called by his comrades "the scholar." "I did try to learn, Mr.Scholar," replied old Nonesuch, taking a pinch of snuff from the Corsican's box; "but indeed it was not in the blood, don't you see?
Not one of my family could read or write; and then I saw so much trouble over the pens and the books when I was blackening my boots at Brienne school, that then I had no wish to learn.