“Why, I shouldn’t have said anything about it, only you ask me so very particularly,” said Jacques, “but I believe I was second myself; but Jean Stein can tell you everything; you weren’t backward yourself Jean, there were not more than three or four of them before you and Peter.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Jean, “but we all did the best we could, I believe.”
“And was Chapeau really second?” said Momont, who was becoming jealous of the distinction likely to be paid to his junior fellow-servant. “You don’t mean to say he went in before all the other gentlemen?”
“Gentlemen, indeed!” said Chapeau. “What an idea you have of taking a town by storm, if you think men are to stand back to make room for gentlemen, as though a party were going into dinner.”
“But tell us now, Jean Stein,” continued Momont, “was Chapeau really second?”
“Well then,” said Jean, “he was certainly second into the water, but he was so long under it, I doubt whether he was second out—he certainly did get a regular good ducking did Chapeau. Why, you came out feet uppermost, Chapeau.”
“Feet uppermost!” shouted Momont, “and is that your idea of storming a town, to go into it feet uppermost?”
“But do you really mean to say that you were absolutely wet through when you took Saumur?” said the laundress.
“Indeed we were,” answered Chapeau, “wringing wet, every man of us.”
“Lawks! how uncomfortable,” said the cook. “And M. Henri, was he wet too?”