Belle Rose: A Romance of the Cloak and Sword — page 55: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE INTERIOR OF A BARRACK. 43 If it has taken the sapper Déroute eighteen years to be- come a corporal, how long willit take the sapper Belle- Rose to become a captain? Thatis what we call a rule of three. Have I guessed it?’’ ‘To a nicety.’’ ‘*Here the rule of three is wrong. Perhaps it will only take you three months to mount to the grade of sergeant. As to myself, I shall die a corporal. There isa particular reason for it. I have been a groom; now one of our young officers, Monsieur de Villebrais, who had seen me wearing the livery, has recognized me. They do not make an offi- cer of agroom. If, thanks to the protection of Monsieur de Naucrais, I become a halberdier, that is as far as 1 shall get.’’ Déroute made this avowal with a simpleand resigned air which touched Belle-Rose. The soldier took the cor- poral’s hand and pressed it; then both arrived at the bar- rack. A uniform, a gun, a saber, a poniard, anda pair of pistols were given to the new-comer, and Belle-Rose, thor- oughly equipped, mounted guard for the first time. The following day he was taught how to handle arms. At the end of a quarter of an hour the corporal perceived that in this respect the recruit was able to give lessons to the pro- fessor. On the day following the next he was placed in the first elements of calculation. Belle-Rose leaped over the four rules and suddenly reached regions where each figure was a letter. He answered problems by means of equa- tions. The following day the corporal placed a piece of chalk between his fingers. While he was teaching him the principles of linear drawing, striving to demonstrate to him the difference which separates a parallelogram from a trapezium, Belle-Rose was scribbling on a slip of paper on the corner of the table. When the demonstration was finished, so was the scribbling, and the corporal laughed heartily on recognizing the locks of his black hair glued flat to his temples, and his pug nose between two eyes planted in Chinese fashion. ‘‘Ah! you are a prince’s son!’’ exclaimed the corporal throwing down his chalk. “‘T have always held my mother fora very honest wo- man, and my father was a falconer.”’ The poor Déroute had studied under the sergeant pro- fessor, and as the opportunity preswented itself; but Déroute only knew what it was necessary for a corporal of sappers to know. When Déroute was embarrassed, he be- gan by reflecting, but when the embarrassment was ex- (E(@) mMmicooo S (C(O)