Page:Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet and other profitable tales, 1915.djvu/139

Rh boots, for you looked up from your work and cried: 'Why it is Puss in Boots!'"

"Did I say 'Puss in Boots.' Poor Émile."

"You said 'Puss in Boots'; and you need not regret it, Zoé. Madame d'Abrantès in her Memoirs relates how a young girl seeing Napoleon, then young and slender, ridiculously accoutred as a General of the Republic, likewise called him 'Puss in Boots.' Bonaparte never forgave her for it. Our friend was more magnanimous; the title did not offend him. Émile Vincent and his company were placed under the command of a general who did not like francs-tireurs, and who thus harangued them: 'It is not everything to be dressed for a carnival. You must know how to fight.'

"The caustic speech did not trouble my friend Vincent. He was splendid throughout the campaign. One day he was seen to approach the enemy's outposts with all the calm of a short-sighted man and a hero. He could not see three steps before him. Nothing could make him retreat. For the remaining thirty years of his life, while he was making carpet-brooms, he lived on the memory of that campaign. He read military newspapers, presided over meetings of his former companions in arms, was present at the unveiling of