‘You have asked his discharge,’ answered the elder, laughing.  ’Bon Dieu!  You are a model of probity!  You’ll never succeed to my place, George, if you are no wiser than you are just now.  Make the fellow as useful to you as you please.  He has a good manner and a frank countenance.  He can lie with an assurance that I never saw surpassed, and fight, you say, on a pinch.  The scoundrel does not want for good qualities; but he is vain, a spendthrift, and a bavard.  As long as you have the regiment in terrorem over him, you can do as you like with him.  Once let him loose, and the lad is likely to give you the slip.  Keep on promising him; promise to make him a general, if you like.  What the deuce do I care?  There are spies enough to be had in this town without him.’

It was thus that the services I rendered to M. Potzdorff were qualified by that ungrateful old gentleman; and I stole away from the room extremely troubled in spirit, to think that another of my fond dreams was thus dispelled; and that my hopes of getting out of the army, by being useful to the Captain, were entirely vain.  For some time my despair was such, that I thought of marrying the widow; but the marriages of privates are never allowed without the direct permission of the King; and it was a matter of very great doubt whether His Majesty would allow a young fellow of twenty-two, the handsomest man of his army, to be coupled to a pimplefaced old widow of sixty, who was quite beyond the age when her marriage would be likely to multiply the subjects of His Majesty.  This hope of liberty was therefore vain; nor could I hope to purchase my discharge, unless any charitable soul would lend me a large sum of money; for, though I made a good deal, as I have said, yet I have always had through life an incorrigible knack of spending, and (such is my generosity of disposition) have been in debt ever since I was born.

My captain, the sly rascal! gave me a very different version of his conversation with his uncle to that which I knew to be the true one; and said smilingly to me, ’Redmond, I have spoken to the Minister regarding thy services,[Footnote:  The service about which Mr. Barry here speaks has, and we suspect purposely, been described by him in very dubious terms.  It is most probable that he was employed to wait at the table of strangers in Berlin, and to bring to the Police Minister any news concerning them which might at all interest the Government.  The great Frederick never received a guest without taking these hospitable precautions; and as for the duels which Mr. Barry fights, may we be allowed to hint a doubt as to a great number of these combats.  It will be observed, in one or two other parts of his Memoirs, that whenever he is at an awkward pass, or does what the world does not usually consider respectable, a duel, in which he is victorious, is sure to ensue; from which he argues that he is a man of undoubted honour.] and thy fortune is made.  We shall get thee out of the army, appoint thee to the police bureau, and procure for thee an inspectorship of customs; and, in fine, allow thee to move in a better sphere than that in which Fortune has hitherto placed thee.