"Because England is the land for it; and I have a fancy that the air of England would be very good just now for you and your young ladies." "Goodness!" said the marquis, sitting up in bed. "Yes, I have the honor to tell you so, my dear host." "Which means that you are advising me to emigrate? No, thank you." "Do you call an agreeable little trip emigration?" "My dear general, those little trips, I know what they are,--worse than a journey round the world; you know when they begin, but nobody knows when they'll end. And, besides, there is one thing--you will hardly, perhaps, believe it--" "What is that?" "You saw yesterday, I may say this morning, that in spite of my age I have a very tolerable appetite; and I can certify that I never had an indigestion in my life. I can eat anything without being made uncomfortable." "Well?" "Well, that devilish London fog, I never could digest it. Isn't that curious?" "Very good; then go to Italy, Spain, Switzerland, wherever you please, but don't stay at Souday. Leave Machecoul; leave La Vendée." "Ha! ha! ha!" "Yes, yes." "Can it be that I am compromised?" said the marquis, half to himself, and rubbing his hands cheerfully. "If you are not now, you will be soon." "At last!" cried the old gentleman, joyously. "No joking," said the general, becoming serious. "If I listened to my duty only, my dear marquis, you would find two sentries at your door and a sub-lieutenant in the chair where I am now sitting." "Hey!" cried the marquis, a shade more serious. "Yes, upon my word, that's the state of things. But I can understand how a man of your age, accustomed as you are to an active life in the free air of the forests, would suffer cooped up in a prison where the civil authorities would probably put you; and I give you a proof of my sympathetic friendship in what I said just now, though in doing so I am, in a measure, compromising with my strict duty." "But suppose you are blamed for it, general?" "Pooh! do you suppose I can't find excuses enough? A senile old man, worn-out, half-imbecile, who tried to stop the column on its march--" "Of whom are you speaking, pray?" "Why, you, of course." "I a senile old man, worn-out, half-imbecile!" cried the marquis, sticking one muscular leg out of bed. "I'm sure I don't know, general, why I don't unhook those swords on the wall and stake our breakfast on the first blood, as we did when I was a lad and a page forty-five years ago." "Come, come, old child!" cried Dermoncourt; "you are so bent on proving I have made a mistake that I shall have to call in the soldiers after all." And the general pretended to rise. "No, no," said the marquis; "no, damn it! I am senile, worn-out, half-imbecile, wholly imbecile,--anything you like, in short." "Very good; that's all right." "But will you tell me how and by whom I am, or shall be, compromised?" "In the first place, your servant, Jean Oullier--" "Yes." "The fox man--" "I understand."