Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/239

Rh elder Coretti attempted to enter the portico, but he was stopped. Then it occurred to him to force his way into the front row of the crowd which formed an opening at the entrance; and making way with his elbow, he succeeded in thrusting us forward also. But the shifting crowd flung us hither and thither. The woodseller got his eye upon the first pillar of the portico, where the police did not allow any one to stand; “Come with me,” he said suddenly, dragging us by the hand; and he crossed the empty space 'in two- bounds, and went and planted himself there, .with his back against the wall.

A police brigadier instantly hurried up and said to him, “You can't stand here.”

“I belong to the fourth battalion of the forty-ninth,” replied Coretti, touching his medal.

The brigadier glanced at it, and said, “Stay where you are.”

“Didn't I say so!” exclaimed Coretti triumphantly; “it's a magic word, that fourth of the forty-ninth! Haven't I the right to see my general with some little comfort,—I, who was in that squadron? I saw him close at hand then; it seems right that I should see him close at hand now. And I say general! He was my battalion commander for a good half-hour; for at such times, while the racket was going, he commanded the battalion himself, and not Major Ubrich, by Heavens!”

In the meantime, in the reception-room and outside, a great mixture of officers and gentlemen was visible, and in front of the door, the carriages, with the lackeys dressed in red, were drawn up in a line.