Ah, these young men, these plump peasant girls!" Both laughed.
"Till this evening, then;" and the Colonel went from the room.
The minister of finance applied a match to the tapers.

He held the burning match aloft and contemplated the door through which the soldier had gone.

The sting of the incipient flame aroused him.
"What," he mused aloud, as he arranged the papers on his desk, "is his third game ?" "It appears to me," said a voice from the wall behind, "that the same question arises in both our minds." The minister wheeled his chair, his mouth and brows puckered in dismay.
From a secret panel in the wall there stepped forth a tall, thin, sour-visaged old man of military presence.

He calmly sat down in the chair which Beauvais had vacated.
"I had forgotten all about you, Marshal!" exclaimed the count, smiling uneasily.
"A statement which I am most ready to believe," replied old Marshal Kampf, with a glance which caused the minister yet more uneasiness.
"What impressed me among other things was, `But what is to become of our friends the Marshal and Mollendorf ?' I am Marshal; I am about to risk all for nothing.

Why should I not remain Marshal for the remainder of my days?
It is a pleasant thing to go to Vienna once the year and to witness the maneuvers, with an honorary position on the emperor's staff.
To be Marshal here is to hold a sinecure, yet it has its compensations.
The uniforms, gray and gold, are handsome; it is an ostrich plume that I wear in my chapeau de bras; the medals are of gold.