A Start in Life [26]
"I have the grand cross of the
Legion of honor, that of Saint Andrew of Russia, that of the Prussian
Eagle, that of the Annunciation of Sardinia, and the Golden Fleece."
"Beg pardon," said Mistigris, "are they all in the coucou?"
"Hey! that brick-colored old fellow goes it strong!" whispered Georges
to Oscar. "What was I saying?--oh! I know. I don't deny that I adore
the Emperor--"
"I served under him," said the count.
"What a man he was, wasn't he?" cried Georges.
"A man to whom I owe many obligations," replied the count, with a
silly expression that was admirably assumed.
"For all those crosses?" inquired Mistigris.
"And what quantities of snuff he took!" continued Monsieur de Serizy.
"He carried it loose in his pockets," said Georges.
"So I've been told," remarked Pere Leger with an incredulous look.
"Worse than that; he chewed and smoked," continued Georges. "I saw him
smoking, in a queer way, too, at Waterloo, when Marshal Soult took him
round the waist and flung him into his carriage, just as he had seized
a musket and was going to charge the English--"
"You were at Waterloo!" cried Oscar, his eyes stretching wide open.
"Yes, young man, I did the campaign of 1815. I was a captain at Mont-
Saint-Jean, and I retired to the Loire, after we were all disbanded.
Faith! I was disgusted with France; I couldn't stand it. In fact, I
should certainly have got myself arrested; so off I went, with two or
three dashing fellows,--Selves, Besson, and others, who are now in
Egypt,--and we entered the service of pacha Mohammed; a queer sort of
fellow he was, too! Once a tobacco merchant in the bazaars, he is now
on the high-road to be a sovereign prince. You've all seen him in that
picture by Horace Vernet,--'The Massacre of the Mameluks.' What a
handsome fellow he was! But I wouldn't give up the religion of my
fathers and embrace Islamism; all the more because the abjuration
required a surgical operation which I hadn't any fancy for. Besides,
nobody respects a renegade. Now if they had offered me a hundred
thousand francs a year, perhaps--and yet, no! The pacha did give me a
thousand talari as a present."
"How much is that?" asked Oscar, who was listening to Georges with all
his ears.
"Oh! not much. A talaro is, as you might say, a five-franc piece. But
faith! I got no compensation for the vices I contracted in that God-
forsaken country, if country it is. I can't live now without smoking a
narghile twice a-day, and that's very costly."
"How did you find Egypt?" asked the count.
"Egypt? Oh! Egypt is all sand," replied Georges, by no means taken
aback. "There's nothing green but the valley of the Nile. Draw a green
line down a sheet of yellow paper, and you have Egypt. But those
Egyptians--fellahs they are called--have an immense advantage over us.
There are no gendarmes in that country. You may go from end to end of
Egypt, and you won't see one."
"But I suppose there are a good many Egyptians," said Mistigris.
"Not as many as you think for," replied Georges. "There are many more
Abyssinians, and Giaours, and Vechabites, Bedouins, and Cophs. But all
that kind of animal is very uninteresting, and I was glad enough to
embark on a Genoese polacca which was loading for the Ionian Islands
with gunpowder and munitions for Ali de Tebelen. You know, don't you,
that the British sell powder and munitions of war to all the world,--
Turks, Greeks, and the devil, too, if the devil has money? From Zante
we were to skirt the coasts of Greece and tack about, on and off. Now
it happens that my name of Georges is famous in that country. I am,
such as you see me, the grandson of the famous Czerni-Georges who made
war upon the Porte, and, instead of crushing it, as he meant to do,
got crushed himself. His son took refuge in the house of the French
consul at Smyrna, and he afterwards died in Paris, leaving
Legion of honor, that of Saint Andrew of Russia, that of the Prussian
Eagle, that of the Annunciation of Sardinia, and the Golden Fleece."
"Beg pardon," said Mistigris, "are they all in the coucou?"
"Hey! that brick-colored old fellow goes it strong!" whispered Georges
to Oscar. "What was I saying?--oh! I know. I don't deny that I adore
the Emperor--"
"I served under him," said the count.
"What a man he was, wasn't he?" cried Georges.
"A man to whom I owe many obligations," replied the count, with a
silly expression that was admirably assumed.
"For all those crosses?" inquired Mistigris.
"And what quantities of snuff he took!" continued Monsieur de Serizy.
"He carried it loose in his pockets," said Georges.
"So I've been told," remarked Pere Leger with an incredulous look.
"Worse than that; he chewed and smoked," continued Georges. "I saw him
smoking, in a queer way, too, at Waterloo, when Marshal Soult took him
round the waist and flung him into his carriage, just as he had seized
a musket and was going to charge the English--"
"You were at Waterloo!" cried Oscar, his eyes stretching wide open.
"Yes, young man, I did the campaign of 1815. I was a captain at Mont-
Saint-Jean, and I retired to the Loire, after we were all disbanded.
Faith! I was disgusted with France; I couldn't stand it. In fact, I
should certainly have got myself arrested; so off I went, with two or
three dashing fellows,--Selves, Besson, and others, who are now in
Egypt,--and we entered the service of pacha Mohammed; a queer sort of
fellow he was, too! Once a tobacco merchant in the bazaars, he is now
on the high-road to be a sovereign prince. You've all seen him in that
picture by Horace Vernet,--'The Massacre of the Mameluks.' What a
handsome fellow he was! But I wouldn't give up the religion of my
fathers and embrace Islamism; all the more because the abjuration
required a surgical operation which I hadn't any fancy for. Besides,
nobody respects a renegade. Now if they had offered me a hundred
thousand francs a year, perhaps--and yet, no! The pacha did give me a
thousand talari as a present."
"How much is that?" asked Oscar, who was listening to Georges with all
his ears.
"Oh! not much. A talaro is, as you might say, a five-franc piece. But
faith! I got no compensation for the vices I contracted in that God-
forsaken country, if country it is. I can't live now without smoking a
narghile twice a-day, and that's very costly."
"How did you find Egypt?" asked the count.
"Egypt? Oh! Egypt is all sand," replied Georges, by no means taken
aback. "There's nothing green but the valley of the Nile. Draw a green
line down a sheet of yellow paper, and you have Egypt. But those
Egyptians--fellahs they are called--have an immense advantage over us.
There are no gendarmes in that country. You may go from end to end of
Egypt, and you won't see one."
"But I suppose there are a good many Egyptians," said Mistigris.
"Not as many as you think for," replied Georges. "There are many more
Abyssinians, and Giaours, and Vechabites, Bedouins, and Cophs. But all
that kind of animal is very uninteresting, and I was glad enough to
embark on a Genoese polacca which was loading for the Ionian Islands
with gunpowder and munitions for Ali de Tebelen. You know, don't you,
that the British sell powder and munitions of war to all the world,--
Turks, Greeks, and the devil, too, if the devil has money? From Zante
we were to skirt the coasts of Greece and tack about, on and off. Now
it happens that my name of Georges is famous in that country. I am,
such as you see me, the grandson of the famous Czerni-Georges who made
war upon the Porte, and, instead of crushing it, as he meant to do,
got crushed himself. His son took refuge in the house of the French
consul at Smyrna, and he afterwards died in Paris, leaving