I'm not going just yet. Go and find the General, and tell him I want to speak to him.

GIUSEPPE (shaking his head). That will never do, Lieutenant.

LIEUTENANT. Why not?

GIUSEPPE. In this wicked world a general may send for a lieutenant; but a lieutenant must not send for a general.

LIEUTENANT. Oh, you think he wouldn't like it. Well, perhaps you're right: one has to be awfully particular about that sort of thing now we've got a republic.

Napoleon reappears, advancing from the vineyard, buttoning the breast of his coat, pale and full of gnawing thoughts.

GIUSEPPE (unconscious of Napoleon's approach). Quite true, Lieutenant, quite true. You are all like innkeepers now in France: you have to be polite to everybody.

NAPOLEON (putting his hand on Giuseppe's shoulder). And that destroys the whole value of politeness, eh?

LIEUTENANT. The very man I wanted! See here, General: suppose I catch that fellow for you!

NAPOLEON (with ironical gravity). You will not catch him, my friend.

LIEUTENANT. Aha! you think so; but you'll see. Just wait. Only, if I do catch him and hand him over to you, will you cry quits? Will you drop all this about degrading me in the presence of my regiment? Not that I mind, you know; but still no regiment likes to have all the other regiments laughing at it.

NAPOLEON. (a cold ray of humor striking pallidly across his gloom). What shall we do with this officer, Giuseppe? Everything he says is wrong.

GIUSEPPE (promptly). Make him a general, excellency; and then everything he says will be right.

LIEUTENANT (crowing). Haw-aw! (He throws himself ecstatically on the couch to enjoy the joke.)

NAPOLEON (laughing and pinching Giuseppe's ear). You are thrown away in this inn, Giuseppe. (He sits down and places Giuseppe before him like a schoolmaster with a pupil.) Shall I take you away with me and make a man of you?

GIUSEPPE (shaking his head rapidly and repeatedly). No, thank you, General. All my life long people have wanted to make a man of me. When I was a boy, our good priest wanted to make a man of me by teaching me to read and write. Then the organist at Melegnano wanted to make a man of me by teaching me to read music. The recruiting sergeant would have made a man of me if I had been a few inches taller. But it always meant making me work; and I am too lazy for that, thank Heaven! So I taught myself to cook and became an innkeeper; and now I keep servants to do the work, and have nothing to do myself except talk, which suits me perfectly.

NAPOLEON (looking at him thoughtfully). You are satisfied?

GIUSEPPE (with cheerful conviction). Quite, excellency.

NAPOLEON. And you have no devouring devil inside you who must be fed with action and victory--gorged with them night and day--who makes you pay, with the sweat of your brain and body, weeks of Herculean toil for ten minutes of enjoyment--who is at once your slave and your tyrant, your genius and your doom--who brings you a crown in one hand and the oar of a galley slave in the other-- who shows you all the kingdoms of the earth and offers to make you their master on condition that you become their servant!-- have you nothing of that in you?

GIUSEPPE.