And he got a box of cigars from the
mantelpiece and offered it. "I sent for you because I want to talk to
you. You are doing valuable work."
"I am glad you think it so, sire," said Henri rather unhappily, because
he felt what was coming. "But I cannot do it all the time. There are
intervals--"
An ordinary mortal may not interrupt a king, but a king may interrupt
anything, except perhaps a German bombardment.
"Intervals, of course. If there were not you would be done in a month."
"But I am a soldier. My place is--"
"Your place is where you are most useful."
Henri was getting nothing out of the cigar. He flung it away and got up.
"I want to fight too," he said stubbornly. "We need every man, and I
am--rather a good shot. I do this other because I can do it. I speak
their infernal tongue. But it's dirty business at the best, sire." He
remembered to put in the sire, but rather ungraciously. Indeed he shot
it out like a bullet.
"Dirty business!" said the King thoughtfully. "I see what you mean. It
is, of course. But--not so dirty as the things they have done, and are
doing."
He sat still and let Henri stamp up and down, because, as has been said,
he knew the boy.
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