"And this news from Algeria is really important," remarked the editor.
"Important! So important that it will be before the Chambers this morning," replied the Secretary.
"So I supposed," said the Deputy, "and called to learn additional particulars, if you had any, on my way to the Chambers."
"We gave all we had, my dear Lycurgus, and for that were indebted to an official dispatch, telegraphed to the War Office, and faithfully re-telegraphed to us by our well-beloved Lucien."
"It's true, then, as I have sometimes suspected, that the wires radiate from the Minister's sanctum to the editor's?" was the laughing rejoinder.
"It must be so, or there's witchcraft in it. There's witchcraft, at any rate, in this new invention. Speed, secrecy, security and surety--no eastern genius of Arabian fiction can be compared to the electric telegraph; and how Ministers or editors continued to keep the world in vassalage, as they always have done, without this ready slave, seems now scarce less wonderful than the invention itself. Instead of detracting from the power of the press, the telegraph renders it more powerful than ever."
"But affairs in Algeria--is not the news splendid!" cried the editor. "Why did we not all become Spahis and win immortality, as some of our generals have?"
"As to immortality," said the Secretary, "we should have been far more likely to win the phantom as dead men than as living heroes."
"Debray was at the raising of the siege of Constantine," said Beauchamp laughing, "and knows all about the honors of war."
"Yes, indeed, and all about the raptures of starvation, of cold and hunger, after victory, and the ecstatic felicity of being pursued by six Bedouins, and after having slain five having my own neck encircled by the yataghan of the sixth!"
"And how chanced it that you saved your head, Lucien?" asked the Count.
"Save it--I didn't save it; but a most excellent friend of mine--a friend in need--galloped up and saved it for me."
"Yes," replied Beauchamp, "our gallant friend, Maximilian Morrel, the Captain of Spahis--now colonel of a regiment, and in the direct line of promotion to the first vacant bâton--eh, Lucien? A lucky thing to save the head of one of the War Office from a Bedouin's yataghan. Up--up--up, like a balloon, has this young Spahi risen ever since."
"You are wrong, Beauchamp. Not like a balloon. Rather like a planet. Maximilian Morrel is one of the most gallant young men in the French army, and step by step, from rank to rank, has he hewn his own path with his good sabre, in a strong hand, nerved by a brave heart and proud ambition, to the position he now holds."