"Two of your Excellency's forced marches."
Suvoroff smiled and looked pleased, for he was very proud of being able to move his men so quickly, and had won many a victory by it.
"Which of your officers do you like best?" was the next question.
Now this Captain Masloff happened to be a very handsome young fellow, while Suvoroff himself was frightfully ugly, so he thought he would catch the soldier in a trap by asking him, "What's the difference between your captain and myself?"
"Why," said the soldier, looking slyly at him, "my captain can't make me a corporal, but your Excellency has only to say the word."
The General burst into a loud laugh, and clapping him on the shoulder, said, "Well, then, I _do_ say the word: you're a corporal from this day forth, and a right good one you'll make. If I can find another man as smart as you, I'll make him a sergeant."
Two or three months after this adventure, Suvoroff and his army were down on the Lower Danube, keeping watch over the Turks, in the middle of the hardest winter that had been known in that country for many a year. But of course, being Russians, they didn't mind _that_ much, and Suvoroff went about in the snow and the frost as if he didn't know what cold was.
Well, one bitter night in the beginning of January, the old General was making the round of the camp, as usual, to see that his sentinels were all keeping good watch at the outposts, when suddenly he came upon a sentry who seemed to have got the coldest place of all, for he was right down upon the bank of the river, with the cold wind blowing through him as if it would cut him in two.
"Good-evening, brother," said the General, speaking as if _he_ were only a common soldier too.
"Good-evening," answered the sentinel, pretending not to know him, although he had recognized the General's voice in a moment.
"Plenty of stars out to-night," went on Suvoroff, looking up at the frosty sky. "Can you tell me how many of them there are altogether?"
"Just wait a bit, and I'll count," said the soldier, quite coolly. And forthwith he began: "One, two, three, four, five, six," and so on, as if he were never going to leave off.
At first Suvoroff was rather amused at his smartness; but he soon found the game getting much too cold to be pleasant, for he was in his usual light dress, while the sentry at least had on a good thick frieze coat. Keener and keener blew the bitter night wind, till the poor old General felt as if he should never be warm again. For a while he bore up manfully, hoping the soldier would get tired and leave off; but when the man got up to a thousand, and was still counting away as if he meant to keep it up all night, Suvoroff could stand it no longer.