“And the names!”
“There are no names as yet,” she returns quietly and goes on with the notes of a speech, “ce cher monsieur Askveeth,” had delivered in the English parliament only yesterday.
But Madame Job is not to be deceived. “It was the 14th which has been so cut up,” she says, putting up her apron to her eyes and beginning to cry again. “I know Albert is dead. Mon pauvre Albert in that terrible Liège!”
“Don’t fuss, Maman,” says M. Alfred the peacemaker. “It will be all right now the men in skirts are there....”
A TEUTON FEAST
Friday.—Two men of the Brandenburger Cuirassiers come into the inn before breakfast. I am brought forward, as usual, to interpret. The shorter of the two, a square-jawed, swashbuckling kind of fellow, demands hay. I reply with superb mendacity, “We have no hay.” He follows this up with enquiries as to the disposition of the enemy. My face becomes vacant, my German resolves itself into a fluent mass of unintelligible sounds.
Woe is me! At that moment the door into the yard opens, and M. Alfred is seen crossing the clean wide space, bearing stablewards half a hayrick on a long pitchfork.
The Cuirassier gives a growl, thrusts his pug-nosed, underbred face almost into mine, and lands me a blow that knocks me up against the wall.
“Isn’t that hay?” he asks fiercely, pointing.
“Hay, but for us,” I answer calmly.