“Wet, to be sure he was wet as water could make him.”
“And the little Chevalier, did he get himself wet?” said the confidential maid, “poor little fellow! it was like to give him his death of cold.”
“But, Chapeau, tell me truly now: did you kill any of those bloody republicans with your own hand?” asked the housekeeper.
“Kill them,” said Chapeau, “to be sure, I killed them when we were fighting.”
“And how many, Chapeau; how many did you positively kill dead, you know?” said the confidential maid.
“What nonsense you do talk!” answered he, with a great air of military knowledge, “as if a man in battle knows when he kills and when he doesn’t. You’re not able to look about you in that sort of way in the middle of the smoke and noise and confusion.”
“You don’t mean to tell me you ever kill a man without knowing it!” said the housekeeper.
“You don’t understand what a battle is at all,” answered Chapeau, determined to communicate a little of his experience on the matter. “One hasn’t time to look about one to see anything. Now supposing you had been with us at the taking of Saumur.”
“Oh, the Lord forbid!” said the housekeeper. “I’d sooner be in my grave any day, than go to one of those horrid bloody battles.”
“Or you, Momont; supposing you’d been there?”