"Why, at first, I was quite sick of cutting up old worn-out horses, who could not even kick; but when I was about sixteen, and my voice began to get rough, it became a passion--a taste--a relish--a rage--with me to cut and slash. I did not care for anything but that; not even eating and drinking. You should have seen me in the middle of my work! Except an old pair of woollen trousers, I was quite naked. When, with my large and well-whetted knife in my hand, I had about me fifteen or twenty horses waiting their turn, by Jupiter! when I began to slaughter them, I don't know what possessed me,--I was like a fury. My ears had singing in them, and I saw everything _red_,--all was red; and I slashed, and slashed, and slashed, until my knife fell from my hands! Thunder! what happiness! Had I had millions, I could have paid them to have enjoyed my trade!" "It is that which has given you the habit of stabbing," said Rodolph. "Very likely; but when I was turned of sixteen, the passion became so strong that when I once began slashing, I became mad; I spoiled my work; yes, I spoiled the skins, because I slashed and cut them across and across; for I was so furious that I could not see clearly. At last they turned me out of the yard. I wanted employment with the butchers, for I have always liked that sort of business. Well, they quite looked down upon me; they despised me as a shoemaker does a cobbler. Then I had to seek my bread elsewhere, and I didn't find it very readily; and this was the time when my bread-basket was so often empty. At length I got employment in the quarries at Montrouge; but, at the end of two years, I was tired of going always around like a squirrel in his cage, and drawing stone for twenty sous a day. I was tall and strong, and so I enlisted in a regiment. They asked my name, my age, and my papers. My name?--the Albino. My age?--look at my beard. My papers?--here's the certificate of the master quarryman. As I was just the fellow for a grenadier, they took me." "With your strength, courage, and taste for chopping and slashing, you ought, in war-time, to have been made an officer."