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126 sleeve of my red coat, when he replaced the musket in the wagon, saying:

"Oh; that's another matter. I took you for one of those coneys who are running after us. Will you take a drop?"

"With all my heart," I answered, drawing near; "it is four-and-twenty hours since I have tasted one."

He had round his neck a cocoa-nut, beautifully carved, and made into a bottle, with a silver neck, of which he seemed a little vain. He reached it to me, and I drank a little poor white wine with a great deal of satisfaction, and returned him the cocoa-nut.

"To the health of the king!" said he, drinking; "he has made me an officer of the Legion of Honor, and it is but right that I should follow him to the frontier. And as I have only my epaulette by which to live, I shall then rejoin my battalion. That's my duty."

As he thus spoke, to himself as it were, he set his little mule in march again, saying that we had no time to lose; and as I was of the same opinion, I resumed my route two or three steps in his rear. I still kept looking at him, but without asking any questions, as I never liked that talkative indiscretion which is so common among us.

We went on in silence for about a mile. As he then stopped to rest his poor little mule,