words: "Night or Blücher"—for it would not have held out much longer.
It was fortunate, too, that the warm afternoon sun had kept strollers away from the esplanade. Otherwise a considerable audience would probably have gathered around these two gentlemen, who went on gesticulating with their arms, and now and then prancing around.
They had had only one on-looker—the sentry who stands at the corner of the gymnastic-school.
His curiosity had enticed him much too far from his post, for he had marched several leagues along the highway from Brussels to Waterloo. The captain would certainly have called him to order long ago for this dereliction of duty but for the fact that the inquisitive private had been of great strategic importance. He represented, as he stood there, the whole of Wellington's reserve; and now that the battle was over the reserve retired in good order northward towards Brussels, and again took up le poste perdu at the corner of the gymnastic school.
III.
"Suppose you come home and have some supper with me," said the captain; "my house is very quiet, but I think perhaps a young man of your character may have no great objection to passing an evening in a quiet family."
Cousin Hans's heart leaped high with joy; he
