If I don't, they'll want me to write out a
complete set of them, and I haven't time to do that."
"Buonaparte is a good-looking name," suggested Bourrienne. "It is
better than Bona Parte, as you sometimes call yourself. If you
settle on Bona Parte, you'd have really three names; and as you don't
write society verse for the comic papers, what's the use? Newspaper
reporters will refer to you as Napoleon B. Parte or N. Bona Parte,
and the public hates a man who parts his name in the middle. Parte
is a good name in its way, but it's too short and abrupt. Few men
with short, sharp, decisive names like that ever make their mark.
Let it be Buonaparte, which is sort of high-sounding--it makes a
mouthful, as it were."
"If I drop the 'u' the autograph will be shorter, and I'll gain time
writing it," said Napoleon. "It shall be Bonaparte without 'u.'"
"Humph!" ejaculated Bourrienne. "Bonaparte without me! I like that.
Might as well talk of Dr. Johnson without Boswell."
Bonaparte now went to Nice as chief of batallion in the army of
Italy; but having incurred the displeasure of a suspicious home
government, he was shortly superseded, and lived in retirement with
his family at Marseilles for a brief time.
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