"You will excuse me?" said Chevalier, and he slipped under the tarpaulin and seated himself beside the old man.
From time to time they exchanged a remark.
"Rotten weather!"
"It's what we expect at this season. Winter's hard; summer's better."
"So you look after the job at night, old fellow?"
The old man answered readily when questioned. Before he spoke his throat emitted a long, very gentle murmur.
"I do one thing one day; another thing another. Odd jobs. See?"
"You are not a Parisian?"
"No, I was born in La Creuse. I used to work as a navvy in the Vosges. I left there the year the Prussians and other foreigners came. There were thousands of them. Can't understand where they all came from. Maybe you've heard of the war of the Prussians, young man?"
He remained silent for a long spell and then resumed: