to touch the rider's heart indirectly. They patted its neck, its nose and its back, and once in a while they even dared to touch the saddle and stirrups, modestly and with awe. In the midst of this effort Gerold had an inspiration. He remembered that he had read somewhere about a lover who used to surprise his lady with gifts hidden about, secretly, flowers and such things. Sad to say he had no flowers. But he did have the five-franc piece which his godfather had given him. So he slipped it gently into the pistol case of the saddle. And at this very moment the head of the dragoon shot out of the window, like a Jack-in-the-Box. "What are you fiddling around that horse for? That's my horse, not yours! Ragamuffin! Dirty little pig! Rascals, both of you! If you don't clear out at once, I will come right there and box your ears."
Completely mortified, and much depressed, they trotted back, hanging their heads. The cannoneer, aside from the disgrace of being turned down, suffered from the mortification of having thrown away his five-franc piece. And the loss of it troubled him less than the agonizing doubt, suggested by his uneasy conscience, that in giving away a present which had been given to him he might have transgressed the eighth commandment, "Thou shalt not steal."
Properly speaking, he had not exactly stolen. But at school they had been given to understand most forcibly and painfully that the Ten Commandments have much wider bearing than the mere words seem to express. If you didn't look where you were going, you suddenly found that you had sinned against one of the dreadful Ten. At best, he had been guilty of careless squandering, and, therefore, he was a spendthrift, like the Prodigal Son.
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