Here,
someone. Hello! Landlord. Where are you? (Somebody raps
vigorously with a whip handle on a bench in the passage.)
NAPOLEON (suddenly becoming the commanding officer again and
throwing Giuseppe off). There he is at last. (Pointing to the
inner door.) Go. Attend to your business: the lady is calling
you. (He goes to the fireplace and stands with his back to it
with a determined military air.)
GIUSEPPE (with bated breath, snatching up his tray). Certainly,
excellency. (He hurries out by the inner door.)
THE MAN's VOICE (impatiently). Are you all asleep here? (The door
opposite the fireplace is kicked rudely open; and a dusty
sub-lieutenant bursts into the room. He is a chuckle-headed young
man of 24, with the fair, delicate, clear skin of a man of rank,
and a self-assurance on that ground which the French Revolution
has failed to shake in the smallest degree. He has a thick silly
lip, an eager credulous eye, an obstinate nose, and a loud
confident voice. A young man without fear, without reverence,
without imagination, without sense, hopelessly insusceptible to
the Napoleonic or any other idea, stupendously egotistical,
eminently qualified to rush in where angels fear to tread, yet of
a vigorous babbling vitality which bustles him into the thick of
things.
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