"Marshal Villars had been all the winter throwing up redoubts and all sorts of works along his lines, from Bouchain, on the Scheldt, which lay here"--Lance stooped down at this and drew an imaginary line on the floor, and George got off the bed, and taking the candle, sat down on the floor, the better to understand--"along the Sanset, which runs this way. Lord, Mr. Washington, I'll have to use the boot-jack to show you about Bouchain and Arras." "And here are the snuffers," eagerly added George, "for Arras; and here is my pocket-rule and a piece of chalk." Lance seized the chalk. "The very thing, sir!" And he drew a very fair map upon the floor, George watching him with bright, intelligent eyes, and afterwards taking the chalk, straightened up Lance's rude sketch. [Illustration: "IT'S A PLEASURE TO SHOW A YOUNG GENTLEMAN LIKE YOU, SIR, HOW IT WAS DONE."] "That's right, sir," said Lance, getting down on the floor himself. "It's a pleasure to show a young gentleman like you, sir, how it was done, because you have the understanding of it, if I may make bold to say so. "Old Villars, then, being a monstrous sharp general, said to himself, 'Aha! I'll beat the long roll on Marlborough now,' and he had the astonishing impudence to call his lines 'Marlborough's _ne plus ultra_,' whatever that is; I don't know myself, but it is some sort of impudence in French." George laughed a little to himself at Lance's notion of the old Latin phrase, but he was too much interested in the story to interrupt.