"Give up drink, old fellow," he invariably replied, "why should I? It is the only thing which makes a man forget. Don't imagine that I was a drunkard before I came to the regiment; but they've driven me to it. During my first year's service I was keen on doing my best, and I hoped to be promoted to the rank of Corporal. I had got through the exams all right, and had been actually nominated for promotion after the manoeuvres we were in the thick of were over, when the crash came. One night, when three other troopers and myself had made ourselves comfortable in a barn full of straw, in comes a Corporal with a pipe in his mouth. Just then he hears a step outside, and suspecting that it is an officer, he shouts out: "'Who's been smoking here? Now look sharp--are you going to tell me or not?' "I wasn't asleep, and I saw through his dirty trick in an instant. The other fellows were soon aroused, and confusedly asked what was the matter. The Corporal repeats his question, but of course there was no culprit to answer it. Then in comes the officer--for the Corporal's suspicion was right enough. "'Go and fetch a lantern,' says he. "Off goes the Corporal and gets one. "Then the officer says: "'Some one has been smoking here, let the man come forward.' "Of course nobody moves because nobody has done it, for 'twas the Corporal all along. "'Very well,' the officer says; 'let's have your numbers,' and he tells the Corporal to put them down. "Mine was the highest as it happened, and on finding this out the officer says: "'You put eight days' _Salle de Police_ to that trooper.' "When the officer has gone I go out to the Corporal--he was a Hussar chap, and so was the officer--and I tell him that it's not right what he's done, and that he knows well enough that it's him that had been smoking, so he turns savage on me, and he says: "'You'll have two days more for insulting me.' "The next day I tell what's happened to my Lieutenant, and he says that he will speak to the Hussar officer; but my Lieutenant comes back, and he says that the officer doesn't mind cancelling my punishment, but that the Corporal insists on letting his two days stand as they are, and that he won't cancel them. All that makes a shindy between the younger officers of our regiment and those of the Hussars, and the General hears of it, because two of them officers actually applied for leave to fight a duel. The General sends for me--he was just mad because during the past fortnight two other barns had been set on fire--and he tells me I am a scoundrel to have smoked in the barn; but I tell him how things happened, and that 'twas the Corporal himself who'd been smoking. The Colonel of the Hussars, who just happened to be coming for some report to the General, says: "'Ah, that's the swine who nearly set a barn on fire last night, and now he tries to take away the character of one of my Corporals!'