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I'll take you once more on my own responsibility'--that's what he

said, 'remember,' he said, 'and now you can go.' I kissed the

dust at his feet--in thought only, for in reality he would not

have allowed me to do it, being a statesman and a man of modern

political and enlightened ideas. I returned home, and when I

announced that I'd been taken back into the service and should

receive a salary, heavens, what a to-do there was!..."