“Mon Dieu!” cried the man, “you are the friend of our boy? He is well? You bear no bad news?”
“He is very well, and I promised to come and tell you this with my own lips. In passing I will say also that I have brought these ladies to have breakfast in your so charming establishment, of whose merits I have heard many times from my friend Honoré.”
“Bien, bien! That is very well, as it should be. I welcome you and your friends. Marie, Marie, come at once. Here is a pleasant surprise for us. It is my wife that I call, my friends. It is the mother of Honoré who is coming.”
A stout, trim, little dumpling of a woman came bustling forward. “What is this? What is this, Pierre?”
Swelling with importance the good host with a wave of the hands included the guests. “This monsieur, Marie, what think you? he arrives on his permissionaire, is it not so, monsieur? He comes direct to us with a message from our son, his comrade. Is this not a fine thing, that he comes to us?”
“Oh, monsieur, you have seen him, you know him? The little one, he remembered to send us a message. He is well? He is not unhappy?”
“He is very well, madame, and he is quite content. We are all content after the victory. Paris is saved.”
“I will so embrace you, monsieur, for it is you with the others who have done this great thing,” said mine host tearfully, as he laid his big hands on Victor’s shoulders and kissed him on each cheek. “I give you my thanks, my child.”
“Ah, but monsieur, madame, I have done nothing. I am but a very small atom,” protested Victor.
“Without the atoms there could not be a thing entire,” said their host. “But, Marie, we are forgetting the ladies. A thousand pardons, mademoiselle, madame. I beg you will come in and be seated. Breakfast, Marie, and the best, the best.”