'Gentlemen, I rely upon you to make no noise about that letter; it is a private matter.

In an hour or so, if any officer shall choose to question me concerning it, I will answer him.' The last remnants of the mob had withdrawn.

The officer in command at the gates threw a cloak over Wilfrid's shoulders; and taking the arm of a friend Wilfrid hurried to barracks, and was quickly in a position to report himself to his General, whose first remark, 'Has the dead horse been removed ?' robbed him of his usual readiness to equivocate.

'When you are the bearer of a verbal despatch, come straight to quarters, if you have to come like a fig-tree on the north side of the wall in Winter,' said General Schoneck, who was joined presently by General Pierson.
'What 's this I hear of some letter you have been barking about all over the city ?' the latter asked, after returning his nephew's on-duty salute.
Wilfrid replied that it was a letter of his sister's treating of family matters.
The two Generals, who were close friends, discussed the attack to which he had been subjected.

Wilfrid had to recount it with circumstance: how, as he was nearing General Schoneck's quarters at a military trot, six men headed by a leader had dashed out on him from a narrow side-street, unhorsed him after a struggle, rifled the saddlebags, and torn the coat from his back, and had taken the mark of his sword, while a gathering crowd looked on, hooting.