"True, my friend, true," returned Napoleon, in a tone of
disappointment. "I had not thought of that. When you write my
autographs for the children of these Jennylukes--"

"Mamelukes, General," corrected Bourrienne.

"Ah, yes--I always get mixed in these matters--for the children of
these Mamelukes, you may stick to the old form. Good-night."

And with that the conqueror went to sleep as peacefully as a little
child.

Had Bonaparte now returned to France he would have saved himself much
misery. King of fire though he had become in the eyes of the
vanquished, his bed was far from being one of roses.

"In a climate like that," he observed, sadly, many years after, "I'd
rather have been an ice baron. Africa got entirely too hot to cut
any ice with me. Ten days after I had made my friend Ptolemy turn
over in his grave, Admiral Nelson came along with an English fleet
and challenged our Admiral Brueys to a shooting-match for the
championship of Aboukir Bay. Brueys, having heard of what magazine
writers call the ships of the desert in my control, supposing them to
be frigates and not camels, imagined himself living in Easy Street,
and accepted the challenge. He expected me to sail around to the
other side of Nelson, and so have him between two fires. Well, I
don't go to sea on camels, as you know, and the result was that after
a twenty-four-hour match the camels were the only ships we had left.
Nelson had won the championship, laid the corner-stone of monuments
to himself all over English territory, cut me off from France, and