Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/40

 arms of my Amphitryon, returned with part of a devilled turkey and two bottles, which she placed before us.

"Well done," said the serjeant; "here is wherewithal to moisten our food, and increase the juices. I shall play my part. After that we shall see; for here, my boy, it is all as I wish. I have only to make a signal. Is it not so, Jeannette? Yes, my comrade," continued he, "I am master here."

I congratulated him on so much good fortune, and we began to eat and drink with might and main. It was long since I had been at such a festival, and I played my part manfully. Abundance of bottles were emptied; and we were about, I believe, to uncork the seventh, when the serjeant went out, and soon returned, bringing with him two new guests, a forager and a serjeant-major, "Five and twenty gods! I like good fellowship," cried Dufailli. "By Jove, I have made two recruits. I know how to go recruiting; ask these gentlemen."

"Oh yes," said the forager, "he is the cock, father Dufailli, to invent plots to seduce conscripts; when I think of them, I remember my own adventure."—"Ah you still remember that!"—"Yes, yes, my old lad, I remember it, and the major also, when you were deep enough to enlist him as secretary to the regiment."

"Well! has he not done well? A thousand thunders! Is it not better to be the first accountable man in an artillery company then sit scratching away on paper in a study? What say you, forager?"—"I agree with you; but"—"But, but, you will tell me perhaps, you, that you were happier, when with your old dog of a master, your were obliged to lay hold of the watering-pot, and make yourself dripping wet with throwing frogs' spawn over your tulips. We were going to embark at Brest, on board 'l'Invincible;' and you would only go out as a flower-gardener.—Well then," said I, "go as flower-gardener; the captain likes flowers;