and it was nicer than talk about girls, and puzzling.  Here lay a clear field; for he had the right to speak of a cavalry officer:  his father died of wounds in the service, and Matey naturally intended to join the Dragoons; if he could get enough money to pay for mess, he said, laughing.  Lord Ormont was his pattern of a warrior.  We had in him a lord who cast off luxury to live like a Spartan when under arms, with a passion to serve his country and sustain the glory of our military annals.  He revived respect for the noble class in the hearts of Englishmen.  He was as good an authority on horseflesh as any Englishman alive; the best for the management of cavalry:  there never was a better cavalry leader.  The boys had come to know that Browny admired Lord Ormont, so they saw a double reason why Matey should; and walking home at his grand swing in the October dusk, their school hero drew their national hero closer to them.

Every fellow present was dead against the usher, Mr. Shalders, when he took advantage of a pause to strike in with his “Murat!”

He harped on Murat whenever he had a chance.  Now he did it for the purpose of casting eclipse upon Major-General Lord Ormont, the son and grandson of English earls; for he was an earl by his title, and Murat was the son of an innkeeper.  Shalders had to admit that Murat might have served in the stables when a boy.  Honour to Murat, of course, for climbing the peaks!  Shalders, too, might interest him in military affairs and Murat; he did no harm, and could be amusing.  It rather added to his amount of dignity.  It was rather absurd, at the same time, for an English usher to be spouting and glowing about a French general, who had been a stable-boy and became a king, with his Murat this, Murat that, and hurrah Murat in red and white and green uniform, tunic and breeches, and a chimney-afire of feathers; and how the giant he was charged at the head of ten thousand horse, all going like a cataract under a rainbow over the rocks, right into the middle of the enemy and through; and he a spark ahead, and the enemy streaming on all sides flat away, as you see puffed smoke and flame of a bonfire.  That was fun to set boys jigging.  No wonder how in Russia the Cossacks feared him, and scampered from the shadow of his plumes—­were clouds flying off his breath!  That was a fine warm picture for the boys on late autumn or early winter evenings, Shalders warming his back at the grate, describing bivouacs in the snow.  They liked well enough to hear him when he was not opposing Matey and Lord Ormont.  He perked on his toes, and fetched his hand from behind him to flourish it when his Murat came out.  The speaking of his name clapped him on horseback—­the only horseback he ever knew.  He was as fond of giving out the name Murat as you see in old engravings of tobacco-shops men enjoying the emission of their whiff of smoke.

Matey was not inclined to class Lord Ormont alongside Murat, a first-rate horseman and an eagle-eye, as Shalders rightly said; and Matey agreed that forty thousand cavalry under your orders is a toss above fifteen hundred; but the claim for a Frenchman of a superlative merit to swallow and make nothing of the mention of our best cavalry generals irritated him to call Murat a mountebank.