Monsieur Maurice

"Of one thing at least I am certain," said my father, holding out his pipe for me to fill it. "He is a soldier."

It was just after dinner, the second day following our prisoner's arrival, and I was sitting on my father's knee before the fire, as was our pleasant custom of an afternoon.

"I see it in his eye," my father went on to say. "I see it in his walk. I see it in the way he arranges his papers on the table. Everything in order. Everything put away into the smallest possible compass. All this bespeaketh the camp."

"I don't believe he is a soldier, for all that," said I, thoughtfully. "He is too gentle."

"The bravest soldiers, my little Gretchen, are ofttimes the gentlest," replied my father. "The great French hero, Bayard, and the great English hero, Sir Philip Sidney, about whom thou wert reading 'tother day, were both as tender and gentle as women."

"But he neither smokes, nor swears, nor talks loud," said I, persisting in my opinion.