Petka even shouted, "I would have shot him dead for stopping there!"
Then we began to feel a little compunction for the frozen Frenchmen. Then, when we had crossed the border, and the Germans who had been opposed to us before declared for us, some one remembered the German present in the room.
"Ah! and that is the way you did? First you were against us, and then when we got strong you took our side!" and suddenly all got up and began to oh! oh! and ah! ah! at the German, so that the noise could have been heard in the street.
When they came to order, I went on to tell them how we escorted Napoleon to Paris; how we set the rightful king on the throne; how we enjoyed our triumphs and feasted; but then the memory of the Crimean War spoiled for us all this glory.
"Just wait!" cried Petka again, shaking his curls. "Wait till I grow up, and I will pay 'em back!"
If now the allied armies had attacked the Shevardinsky redoubt or the Malakhof Tower, we should have driven them back!
It was already late when I brought my story to an end. As a general thing the children are asleep by this time. But no one was sleepy; even the eyes of the cuckoos were aglow. The moment I stood up, Taraska, to my great amazement, crept out from under my arm-chair, and looked at me with eager, but at the same time serious, face.
"How came you under there?"
"He has been there from the very first," said some one.
There was no need of asking if he had understood: it was evident by his face.
"What can you tell us about it?" I asked.
"I?" he repeated; "I can tell it all. I am going to tell about it when I get home."
"And I."
"And I too."
"Won't it be too long?"
