"And why the deuce are we going to fight Bonaparte?" remarked Shinshin.

" He has stopped Austria's cackle and I fear it will be our turn next.

" The colonel was a stout, tall, plethoric German, evidently devoted to the service and patriotically Russian.

He resented Shinshin's remark.

"It is for the reasson, my goot sir," said he, speaking with a German accent, "for the reasson zat ze Emperor knows zat.