“Only for what?  He cannot be in love with the prison?”

“It serves his turn,” said Picpon mysteriously.  “Did you never guess why, mon Caporal?  Well, I have.  ‘Crache-au-nez-d’la-Mort’ is a fine fearless soldier.  The officers know it; the bureaus know it.  He would have mounted, mounted, mounted, and been a Captain long before now, if he had not been a pratique.”

“I know that; so would many of you.”

“Ah, mon Caporal; but that is just what Rac does not choose.  In the books his page beats every man’s, except yours.  They have talked of him many times for the cross and for promotion; but whenever they do he goes off to a bit of mischief, and gets himself punished.  Any term of punishment, long or short, serves his purpose.  They think him too wild to take out of the ranks.  You remember, mon Caporal, that splendid thing that he did five years ago at Sabasasta?  Well, you know they spoke of promoting him for it, and he would have run up all the grades like a squirrel, and died a Kebir, I dare say.  What did he do to prevent it?  Why, went that escapade into Oran disguised as a Dervish, and go the prison instead.”

“To prevent it?  Not purposely?”

“Purposely, mon Caporal,” said Petit Picpon, with a sapient nod that spoke volumes.  “He always does something when he thinks promotion is coming—­something to get himself out of its way, do you see?  And the reason is this:  ’tis a good zig, and loves you, and will not be put over your head.  ‘Me rise afore him?’ said the zig to me once.  ’I’ll have the As de pique on my collar fifty times over first!  He’s a Prince, and I’m a mongrel got in a gutter!  I owe him more than I’ll ever pay, and I’ll kill the Kebir himself afore I’ll insult him that way.’  So say little to him about the Spahi, mon Caporal.  He loves you well, does your Rac.”

“Well, indeed!  Good God! what nobility!”

Picpon glanced at him; then, with the tact of his nation, glided away and busied himself teaching Flick-Flack to shoulder and present arms, the weapon being a long stick.

“After all, Diderot was in the right when he told Rousseau which side of the question to take,” mused Cecil, as he crossed the barrack-yard a few minutes later to visit the incarcerated pratique.  “On my life, civilization develops comfort, but I do believe it kills nobility.  Individuality dies in it, and egotism grows strong and specious.  Why is it that in a polished life a man, while becoming incapable of sinking to crime, almost always becomes also incapable of rising to greatness?  Why is it that misery, tumult, privation, bloodshed, famine, beget, in such a life as this, such countless things of heroism, of endurance, of self-sacrifice—­things worthy of demigods—­in men who quarrel with the wolves for a wild-boar’s carcass, for a sheep’s offal?”

A question which perplexes, very wearily, thinkers who have more time, more subtlety, and more logic to bring to its unravelment than Bertie had either leisure or inclination to do.