"I won't have Nénesse go," she declared. "Monsieur Baillehache explained a sort of lottery dodge to us. Several people club together, each of them lodging in his hands a sum of money, and those who have unlucky numbers are bought off."
"People must be well off to do that," said La Grande, drily.
Bécu had caught a stray word or so between two tricks.
"War! Heart alive!" said he. "There's nothing like it for making men! When you've not been in it, you can't know. There's nothing like taking shot and steel as they come! How about yonder, among the blackamoors?"
He winked his left eye, while Hyacinthe simpered knowingly. They had both served in Algeria, the rural constable in the early days of the conquest, the other more recently, at the time of the late revolts. Accordingly, in spite of the difference in period, they had some reminiscences in common; of Bedouins' ears cut off and strung into chaplets; of oily-skinned Bedouin women seized behind hedges and corked up in every orifice. Hyacinthe, in particular, had a tale, which set the bellies of the peasants shaking with tempestuous laughter, a tale of a big lemon-coloured cow of a woman whom they had set a-running quite naked, with a pipe stuck in her.
"Zounds!" resumed Bécu, addressing Fanny: "You want Nénesse to grow up a girl, then? However, Delphin shall wear regimentals in no time, I promise you!"
The children had left off playing, and Delphin raised his hard bullet-like head, already even redolent of the soil.
"Sha'n't!" he said, bluntly and stubbornly.
"Hallo!" rejoined his father, "what's that? I shall have to teach you what bravery is, my traitor Frenchman."
"I won't go away; I'll stop at home."