_Napoleon!_
"Don't furgit the number," urged the Countess, "an' if you got any
friends, I'd appreciate--"
"Certainly! Sure thing!" said the palpitating one, and blindly felt his
way into the night.
The same stars shone above the city street; the same heedless throng
disregarded them; disregarded, too, the slight figure that paused a
moment to survey the sky and the world beneath it through a new pair of
eyes.
_Napoleon!_
IV
He walked buoyantly home. He had a room at the top of a house in an
uptown cross-street. Having locked his door and lighted a gas-jet he
stood a long time before his mirror. It was a friendly young face he saw
there, but troubled. The hair was pale, the eyes were pale, the nose
small. The mouth was rather fine, cleanly cut and a little feminine. The
chin was not a fighter's chin, yet neither chin nor mouth revealed any
weakness. He scanned the features eagerly, striving to relate them with
vaguely remembered portraits of Napoleon. He was about the same height
as the Little Corporal, he seemed to recall, but an eagle boldness was
lacking. Did he possess it latently? Could he develop it? He must have
books about this possible former self of his. He had early become
impatient of written history because when it says sixteen hundred and
something it means the seventeenth century. If historians had but agreed
to call sixteen hundred and something the sixteenth century, he would
have read more of them.
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