"But, my wife," said Joseph, indulgently, "what was there to be feared?" "I will tell you. A crowd of soldiers came swaggering into Schmidt's. They ordered him to wait on them, and when he asked for money for the food, they shook their fists at him with ugly words, and called for all to come and take what they would. Two officers hurried up and ordered them to return to their ranks, but they laughed at the officers." "Mutiny!" whispered Napoleon's soldier, his face pale with excitement. "They swore oaths and said that they would fight no more battles for men who were old women and stayed at home while they sweated and bled and were starving." "Without doubt their officers ordered them into arrest?" demanded Joseph, fiercely. "Who was there to arrest them? The officers looked white, and I was trembling. More soldiers came into the square, until everywhere there were angry faces and bodies swaying this way and that, while the men were thinking what evil they should do. At that moment a carriage drove up at full speed. There was one man in it. He stood up; he was a tall man. A hesitating sort of shout went up from the soldiers. Then there was a great muttering, and every one rushed toward him, and some were shaking their fists. "The man stood still. He said no word. But little by little the muttering stopped and there was silence. Then the crowd began backing away from him. There was a break in the mass, and through it I saw his face. He was smiling with--well, the way fathers look at their children that have hurt themselves because they were naughty and are yet not very bad. Still there was silence." "He held them so?" broke in Joseph. "But then he was a great man. But who?" "Wait. He began talking to them. I couldn't hear what he said, for all the men began crowding up around him. But one moment they laughed, and the next they were wiping their eyes with the back of their hands." Joseph was listening with shining eyes. "When he had driven off again the soldiers went back to their camp. Some of them looked downcast and ashamed, but most of them were just boyish and good-natured, as if they had forgotten how they felt before. One boy laughed as he passed me: "'Say, that was a good one about the tin soldier. I felt like a toy soldier myself when he turned those eyes of his on me!'" "Who was it?" asked Joseph Schotz, eagerly. "Have they such a man? Was it the new general? I have thought he might be such a man--to win such victories. And yet"--his face fell--"that one is a short man, and this, you said, was very tall." "The general? No!" said Mrs. Schotz, contemptuously. "It was not the general. As he drove off, some boys shouted, 'Hurrah for the President!'" "The President!" Joseph echoed. "The President. And, Joseph, when I saw his face I knew him." She paused to make sure of the effect upon her petted invalid of what she had to say. "It was he who came to us to buy toy soldiers!"